


As Lightning to the Children eased

by loosingletters



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Body Horror, Codependency, Death, Eldritch, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Shmi Skywalker, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jedi Shmi Skywalker, Meta, Possessive Anakin Skywalker, Protectiveness, Slavery, The Force is Scary and Terrifying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22880668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: Anakin Skywalker was the son of the Force and in this universe the primordial power flowing through everything stayed to guide him.“Mom,” Anakin said, blue eyes glowing bright like a thousand suns. Blood was dripping from his legs, his hands, the knife he was holding. “Mom, I can free us.”[A Fix-it discussing how terrifying a half-mortal child should be.]
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Shmi Skywalker, The Force & Anakin Skywalker, The Force/Shmi Skywalker
Comments: 527
Kudos: 1992
Collections: Eldritch Star Wars





	1. Creation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I wrote something about eldritch like Anakin that turned into this 3 chapter story. The Rape and Forced pregnancy tags are actually about Shmi and her situation because nobody sure asked her if she wanted that child, no matter how much she loved Anakin in the end. So this story discusses how absolutely creepy and terrifying everything about Anakin, his creation and the Force should be.  
> THAT BEING SAID THIS STORY IS A FIX-IT. NO SAD PREQUEL ENDINGS IN MY LOBBY. Title is taken from an Emily Dickinson poem bc I love her.  
> Have fun!

Shmi had always been able to feel other people’s presence and it was only due to that ability that she had survived as long and as well as she had. She could be dead twice over, her body broken to no repair, but Shmi was still standing, her eyes averted, but alive. She could always tell when she needed to disappear into the shadows to avoid a beating, or when to step out of them so she’d make it to the next day.

And then, one morning, she woke up to find her own presence changed. She threw up the meager content of her empty stomach until she was heaving up acid.

 _No, no, no, no,_ she thought, screamed as loudly as she was allowed to. The other slaves in the quarter believed her to have finally broken, snapped like a cord stretched too far.

But Shmi’s mind was clear, or at least all she could remember was. She didn’t have any gaps in her memories and all the other slaves reassured her that she’d slept well through the night.

Everything in her screamed that they were speaking the truth, that nobody had stolen her away and forced themselves upon her, but there was no other possibility.

She’d managed to be spared some of the worst cruelties of this life for years, but even her luck had to run out someday.

Such was the life of a slave.

**X**

It took two months for the others to understand why Shmi had become hysteric so many nights ago. Their sometimes kind, sometimes pitiful looks were much too late then anyway and Shmi wasn’t sure whether to resent or appreciate them.

“The Master doesn’t know yet,” their elder told her confidentially. “It’s not too late. You don’t have to keep it.”

Shmi knew that, but yet she couldn’t bring herself to consent.

 _Mine_ , something cooed. _Mine, yours, ours, bright, precious child, so beautiful, keep it, keep him. I will ruin you._

“No,” Shmi heard her own voice say. “I will raise my son.”

The option of various choices, she had learned early on, did not always mean that you were actually allowed to pick.

**X**

Anakin was born during a sandstorm. It was a long and difficult birth, so painful that Shmi regretted al the choices she hadn’t been able to make. Shmi spent the entire day in fear. She was scared of death, of hating her child of loving him too much, and yet-

 _Trust me_ , it breathed like a poisonous lover. _He’s a gift, but you have to let go of yourself and trust me, me, me._

Her son’s eyes were the color of the sky, of dying stars and life and _it_ sang in joy. Shmi hadn’t cried in years, crying was a waste of water on Tatooine, but she wouldn’t hold back the tears, just this once.

 _Change_ , it chanted. _Balance_. _Freedom_.

“Hope,” Shmi whispered and pulled Anakin close to her chest.

**X**

Nothing and yet everything changed after Anakin’s birth. Unlike most slave children, Anakin never fell sick due to the poor conditions they were living in, nor did any visible injuries stay for long. Only one pain wouldn’t go away, no matter how many hours he rested in the shadows. Anakin suffered from terrible headaches, and it frustrated Shmi how long it took her to find the source of his misery.

“Listen to me,” Shmi told him as another slave got punished and all of them were forced to watch. “Only to me and nobody else.”

Shmi stayed calm and Anakin’s head was clear. Even though he was standing behind her, Shmi felt as if they were lying on their dirty matt together, curled beneath a warm blanket.

 _I love you_ , Shmi promised. _You’ll be safe with me_.

**X**

Anakin learned much faster than he should and Shmi could see how it worried the other slaves. They helped her keep Anakin’s otherness secret either way, especially when it turned out that his presence benefitted them.

The guards and Masters became less harsh in his presence, left earlier, didn’t ask as many questions and weren’t as suspicious. More slaves stayed alive, stayed healthy and Shmi couldn’t tell them why.

 _Change_ , it laughed, amused as if Shmi was an ignorant little insect, precious only for her colors.

 _Tell me_ , she begged, but got no reply in return.

And then Anakin began levitating objects, told guards to leave them alone and Shmi could only watch as the men turned around, dazed like they had spent too many hours in the sun.

“He’s Force-sensitive!” A new arrival hissed when they saw Anakin working, his tools flying around his head. They were from one of the Core Worlds but had gotten kidnapped by pirates. “Like those Jedi!”

“This is what it’s called?” Shmi asked and the other person nodded sharply.

Shmi’s fingernails dug into the palms of her hands, not yet drawing blood, but hurting enough to ground her.

 _Tell me_ , she demanded this time, furious and protective. Her son, it had said. If Anakin was hers, Shmi had the right to know. _Tell me what he is._

 _Mine, yours, ours,_ the Force laughed, filled with pride. _Half here, half there. More than any of you, less than me. Yours to cherish, love and raise, mine to guide, teach, and become_.

Shmi’s throat closed up. The wind was dancing around her legs, she could feel every single grain of sand on her skin, but at the same time she was standing in the other, that part of the universe Anakin was always half-submerged in.

She turned and-

“Mom?” He said, his voice wavering.

He took a step back, or perhaps just pushed her away further into the void. Wings of stained glass engulfed his body, protecting him from seeing the horror on her face, or perhaps keeping her save from him. It was like staring into the sun, seeing colors you could never quite replicate, the feeling of water running over your bruised hands.

For the first time in four years, Shmi could see what this other half of her son was and she had to admit that the Force had been right. Their son was beautiful.

 _No harm will come to him_ , Shmi demanded once more as reality warped again. Anakin stared up at her with his beautiful eyes that never seemed human enough. _You will keep him safe or I will tear you apart._

 _Of course, Lucky One,_ they said, _for harming him means harming me._

**X**

Anakin couldn’t conceal his emotions like Shmi, no matter how much he tried to swallow them. He was too strong for that, too aware. Shmi knew he loved her and would do everything for her, no matter if she’d asked it of him or not.

“Mom,” Anakin said, blue eyes glowing bright like a thousand suns.

Blood was dripping from his legs, his hands, the knife he was holding. “Mom, I can free us.”

Shmi knew better than to be terrified, to show or feel any fear. Anakin’s senses were fine-tuned to the people surrounding him. He had learned how to shield, but his primary defense was still Shmi. She had to be calm. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, to assess the situation. Her child was bleeding but shining with delight, the Force wrapped around him hummed with pride.

“Anakin, what did you do?”

Most of the time, Shmi felt like a single mother, raising her barely human son and keeping the primordial Force guiding him in check. But sometimes the Force took charge and Shmi was horribly out of control.

“I learned how to search for sickness!” The four-year-old proclaimed. “And then I found my transmitter and cut it out.”

Anakin raised his hand and opened it, showing her a small metal piece.

It was his slave transmitter. Shmi knew what they looked like, though she hadn’t been there when they put it in her son.

He was _free_.

“Yours is here,” Anakin said confidently and put his small hand on her shoulder, smearing blood all over it.

“I can take it out.”

She could be free. It wouldn’t take long, they only needed to burn the blade to cleanse it. Her life was just within reach-

“Not yet,” Shmi decided. “We need a plan first.”

Flames erupted within her mind, Anakin’s anger. It was too easy to get eternally lost in it. She soothed it with the few pleasant memories she had and pulled her son close.

“A few credits, food and shelter,” she told him. “Then we can go.”

Anakin bit his cheek and blew a raspberry. “Fine. We _have_ to go though.”

“And where?” Shmi asked.

“Away,” Anakin replied, and rested his head against her shoulder, her lifeline, her shackles. “They’re waiting for me. They’re mine and they need me.”

Shmi could feel the Force grin, wide and happy with razor-sharp teeth.

This, she realized, she wouldn’t be able to deny her child and its guardian. The only option she had was following the two to remind Anakin that he needed to stop and take care of himself.

He might be half there, but he was half here too. Just human enough that the Force alone couldn’t sate him.

**X**

Anakin took out her transmitter a week later, then those of the other slaves, one by one cutting through flesh to freedom. It should disturb her how fascinated Anakin was by the process. While the other slaves were all crying of happiness, celebrating their freedom, Anakin could hardly be torn away from the sight of life flowing beneath his fingertips. Each night they went to bed, her son acted as if high on spice and yet each morning he returned back to work, determined and focus.

_What are you doing to him?_

_Humans. Pain. Pleasure. Destruction. Healing. Strength, all for us to consume_ , they sighed wistfully. _Let him continue._

They thought of disabling the explosives at first, getting rid of them in the trash, but no matter how far away from instant death they were, they were not yet free, not completely.

Gardulla the Hutt’s palace was a fortress, impossible to conquer from outside. But from within the palace walls, it was almost too easy. Nobody paid too much attention to the slaves who were running through the halls. They weren’t dangerous as none of them were armed.

Anakin hid with the other children, knives and rocks flying above their heads as their only defense. Shmi and the others turned on the explosives, forcefully taking over the building they hadn’t ever been allowed to leave. The hallways were painted in blood, and not one of them died.

 _You’re so strong, Rich One,_ the Force praised her. _Now take our son where he belongs._

**X**

They raided the treasury, sharing the wealth equally between them. Slaves weren’t greedy by necessity and so Shmi and Anakin had just the amount they needed to get off Tatooine. Some of the free left with them, others had decided to stay on planet and in the castle.

“We’re gonna take all these bastards out,” the free woman in charge promised, grinning. “We have weapons and money. They won’t see us coming. May the Stars guide you through the night.”

“May the desert hide your tracks,” Shmi replied and squeezed Anakin’s hand.

Her son was already staring ahead, putting the past behind him.

**X**

Anakin guided them from one planet to the next, picking which ships they should board and leave. They lingered on Naboo a little longer than necessary, enjoying the mild climate and the abundance of water.

“We’re gonna be back,” Anakin said as they watched the planet become smaller and smaller.

Shmi recognized his tone of voice as the one she’d come to understand as significant. She wouldn’t go as far as to call it prophetic, but she knew her son spoke the truth.

“Tell me a story!” Anakin then insisted, four years old still and captivated by the legends their people told each other at night.

**X**

When they arrived on Coruscant, Anakin hesitated.

“It’s loud,” he said as Shmi picked him up, walking into the direction of the Jedi temple. “And there’s no balance.”

Shmi was fairly sure that those words weren’t enough to explain how the world felt to Anakin, so she tried her best to calm him and keep him isolated from all these foreign signatures. She hoped the Jedi would be able to help them. Anakin’s powers grew by the day and she wasn’t sure how much longer she alone would be enough to contain them.

**X**

One moment everything was silent, then Obi-Wan’s mind fractured into a thousand impressions. He barely registered his knees hitting the ground, his Master’s worry. The world around Obi-Wan was so loud, seemed to be screaming at him as it tore down his shields. As soon as Obi-Wan had repaired one wall, another broke. No matter how fast he worked, he couldn’t keep up. If he didn’t fix them now, he’d drown, burn, choke on the power that had kept him alive all these years.

“Let him through!” A woman shouted.

Something slammed into Obi-Wan, sent him crashing down to the floor. He landed flat on his back as someone crawled on top of him. Obi-Wan opened his eyes and saw the future.

On autopilot he wrapped his arms around the child, foreheads touching and-

_Anakin, bright one, heart, soul, the warrior, I missed you, mine, mine, mine-_

The silence didn’t return, but the chaos stopped as it was taken over by warmth, love, and protectiveness.

“Hello, dear one,” Obi-Wan said, and a weight he hadn’t even noticed carrying for all his life suddenly lifted from his shoulders.

“Been waiting for you,” Anakin cried, tears running over his round cheeks. “For so, so long, it _hurt_.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m here. I’m never leaving you again.”

Rationally, Obi-Wan knew he shouldn’t make such declarations, but the Force was humming in approval and he wouldn’t take back his words for anything. He belonged right here at Anakin’s side and nobody would tear them apart again.

He could feel the other Jedi in the hall staring at them and Obi-Wan had never cared less. He’d leave it all if necessary

 _Let them come,_ they hissed. _Let them try. They won’t survive. There will be Balance. There will be you and you are ours._

 _Mine_ , Anakin hummed, a thousand eyes fixated on Obi-Wan. _Yours_. He could feel Anakin’s feathers wrap around him, cutting into his skin like a childish attempt of giving Obi-Wan a part of himself as a gift to strengthen their bond.

 _Ours_ , Obi-Wan replied and picked Anakin up, barely feeling any pain from the golden fire-dripping feathers sticking out of his back. His wounds would heal once Anakin learnt.

“Master,” Obi-Wan called out to Qui-Gon. “We need to talk to the Council.”

His Master hastened to follow the two of them and Anakin giggled into the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I hope you enjoyed this first chapter and I promise There Will Be Explanations Of Sorts about why Obi-Wan reacted the way he did.  
> I'd love to hear what you think!


	2. Education

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to see so many people are interested in this story!  
> I hope you'll enjoy this next chapter!

“Master,” Obi-Wan said almost absentmindedly. “We need to talk to the Council.”

His voice was calm and steady, soft too as if talking to Qui-Gon was just an afterthought in Obi-Wan’s mind. Considering how focused Obi-Wan was on the child in his arms, maybe his assessment was right. The child was bright in the Force. Looking at him was like meditating in the summer heat. If such a youngling had been brought to the temple, Qui-Gon would have noticed it. Everyone would be talking about him, and yet he didn’t know who this child was and couldn’t do anything but follow his Padawan.

“ _Anakin_ ,” a woman, yet another stranger in the temple, said. She was wearing brown airy robes and smiling tiredly. “Anakin, what have you done now-“

Her eyes drifted to Obi-Wan’s back and she flinched. She opened her mouth again, but whatever she wanted to say was dismissed by Obi-Wan holding his free hand up.

“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan said. “It’ll heal. He didn’t know any better.”

 _What will heal_ , Qui-Gon wanted to ask. _What have you done to my Padawan?_

But his throat closed up, as if someone had put his hands around his neck, not yet squeezing, merely as a warning.

 _Do not interfere_ , the Force hissed. Qui-Gon hesitated.

**X**

Mace wasn’t sure what to make of the strange group that had assembled in front of the Council. Qui-Gon looked as if he’d been sent on a hellish mission to the Outer Rim, while his Padawan was positively glowing with contentment. He was holding onto a child who appeared to be perfectly happy in Kenobi’s arms while the woman accompanying them smiled softly.

“I’m Shmi Skywalker and this is my son Anakin,” the woman introduced them.

The child, Anakin, didn’t look like he planned to let go of Kenobi any time soon and the Padawan made no move to put him down.

“Highly unusual, this is,” Master Yoda said. “To leave your son with us, you have come?”

Shmi’s expression darkened and she mustered them in confusion.

“I have no intention of just leaving my son here,” Shmi said.

Mace, while frowning before, now had a look of patience. They were all used to talking to parents who didn’t want to leave their children behind and were trained to talk to them. Jedi had gained a reputation of stealing children, and perhaps that was true to a degree, but the galaxy didn’t know how dangerous an untrained young Force-sensitive could be. The older they got, the more did their subconscious control grow and the Force wouldn’t act out rashly. Young children though posed an immense threat.

Mace once had to stop one angry youngling from choking another. The child hadn’t meant to hurt the other so extremely, it had just lashed out. Where other children simply threw toys, Force-sensitive ones could injure severely.

“Miss Skywalker,” he began to say, but the woman only shook her head.

Mace couldn’t decipher the look she was giving him. He was used to noticing more than even other Jedi, her presence unnerved him.

“I’m meant to stay here. Can’t you hear it?”

Mace leaned back in his chair and concentrated. The Force had been clouded for a while, but Mace couldn’t just sit and observe this time. He reached out and-

Listened.

_HEAR ME THEY ARE MINE MINE MINE OH MY CHILD SO BLIND SO DEAF DECAY IS ROTTING YOUR FLESH THEY’RE DRAINING YOU-_

_Screamed_.

Collapsed like a dying star.

**X**

The Skywalkers stayed.

There were enough empty rooms at the temple – and hadn’t all of them been full centuries ago? – and Mace stayed as far away from them as he could. He hated looking at young Anakin and seeing the outline of something bigger. Broken glass cracked with Anakin’s every step, as loud as the voice still ringing in Mace’s ear. He had a hard time paying attention to his surroundings even weeks after he’d been released from the Healer’s ward, always trying to block out the high-pitched whirling that never seemed to disappear anymore.

He wanted to listen, hear what the Force had to say, but it appeared to be all or nothing and Mace knew what the former lead to.

He’d simply have to endure and built up his strength again. But one thing he knew for sure was that the Skywalkers needed to be here, even if Mace couldn’t stand to be in their presence.

**X**

It took a few days for Obi-Wan to detach himself from Anakin and vice versa. The bond Anakin had forced into developing much quicker than it should have was still a little sore, but it had stopped suffocating him whenever they let go of one another.

Moving back into his own quarters was out of question though and would be for another couple weeks at least. Obi-Wan felt almost a little sorry for his Master for being stuck so long at the temple when they’d been scheduled for a mission already.

But only a little.

After all, his Master was dancing around the topic of Anakin and what tied the two together. Instead of just outright asking Obi-Wan, he spent hours in the library or tried to subtly interrogate Shmi, but she was having none of that. Every time he approached her, Shmi deterred the conversation into a different direction or told Qui-Gon to speak plainly, which often enough left him fumbling.

 _He will learn_ , they cackled, amused by the chaos their child’s presence was creating.

Obi-Wan sighed and leaned back, causing Anakin, who’d been sitting behind him on the ground, to squeak.

“Obi-Wan!” The boy complained, but his other half just laughed. “I’m not finished!”

“You’ve been at it for hours, Anakin.”

“But you’re still hurting!”

Obi-Wan didn’t even need to turn around to know Anakin was biting at his lips, trembling in guilt and shame with his eyes downcast. Instinct was a good teacher, but it was also a rough one. Anakin had wanted to tie Obi-Wan to him and so he did, hacking off parts of himself and sewing them to Obi-Wan. There were kinder, slower, ways of creating such bonds that didn’t require Anakin to dig his hands into Obi-Wan’s mind to make space. But that how he’d done it and the wounds simply needed more time to heal. Anakin picking at them wouldn’t improve anything.

 _It’ll be alright_ , Obi-Wan repeated himself. _I wouldn’t want to stay apart any longer than needed anyway_.

 _Promise?_ Anakin didn’t let go of Obi-Wan yet, his presence was still at large in his mind.

 _Promise_.

**X**

A lot of Jedi couldn’t bear being around Anakin and it didn’t take too long for them to shy away from Obi-Wan as well. Anakin didn’t understand why they were disturbed by him and Shmi didn’t know how to explain to her son that he scared the Jedi. The gifts Tatooine had been so thankful for, were seen differently here. The Jedi chastised his frivolous use of the Force, bothered by how easily he used it in everyday life. Shmi couldn’t claim that she saw any harm in floating a cup off the shelf, but there must be something about it that bordered on the edge of heretical.

 _Misguided_ , they sighed at the back of Shmi’s head.

Perhaps the Jedi were put off by Anakin’s presence, so much louder and more violent than their own. He stitched back his open wounds with practiced carelessness, often time not even noticing that he was healing his bloody knees. What were a few scrapes to cutting a slave transmitter out of an abdomen?

It troubled Shmi that the Jedi didn’t know what to do with Anakin. Weeks turned to months and years and the Jedi taught him, terrified of where else he might seek an education, but what lessons Anakin took away from their teachings were usually Shmi’s to smooth out.

Most of Anakin’s classes only seemed to confuse him further. They talked about the rules the Jedi had to follow, the beliefs they proclaimed as truths and the limits they imposed on the Force. Shmi had seen her son perform one miracle after another, she wasn’t entirely sold on the Jedi’s perception of the Force.

“Mom, what are limits?” Anakin asked from his seat at the kitchen table.

“Limits are lines that cannot be crossed,” Shmi answered and began to pour soup into the first bowl. Obi-Wan would certainly show up within the next ten minutes, dragging his teacher with him.

“Can’t or shouldn’t?”

Shmi worried and as soon as doubt entered her mind, she could feel the Force pushing. This was her lesson to teach, Shmi decided and batted the Force away.

“Sometimes both, sometimes neither,” Shmi replied. “You have to figure that out yourself.”

Anakin looked down on his hands lying in his lap.

“I don’t think I have limits,” he said quietly.

Before Shmi could reply, the door to their apartment opened and Obi-Wan stumbled inside, Qui-Gon following him. The older man looked unsure still, like he was questioning his place at their table. He too would benefit from paying attention to the truth.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin exclaimed and tackled his other half.

Without them, Anakin probably really wouldn’t have any limits. He could do what he want, uncaring of the consequences, perhaps not even aware of them. All of them, Anakin’s chosen, they were putting him in chains and tying him to the Earth.

 _Not chains_ , the Force corrected unusually gently. _Lifelines, purpose, health. More to come._

**X**

Obi-Wan’s circle of friends had come apart rather abruptly when Anakin had taken him away by storm. He could see their wariness, their fear, and it pained him that they couldn’t see past Anakin’s ignorance. He was a child, he made mistakes, and he didn’t always realize how much he was _slipping_.

It left Obi-Wan wondering whether Anakin wouldn’t be better off somewhere far away from the temple. Even if none of the Jedi used the Force as often and openly as Anakin, they were still using it and their connection pulled Anakin in. His shadow would grow longer, his eyes shone brighter and it was easy to freeze up when every word he said rang with ugly truths you didn’t want to hear. Anakin had a sharp tongue, though Obi-Wan knew he didn’t mean to cut away skin, peel of layers and layers of shielding and protection to dig into your mind like it was the most fascinating and precious toy.

Anakin cared for others, understood himself as someone whose purpose it was to look after others, but he didn’t necessarily understand boundaries.

_Why couldn’t he just tell somebody to sleep when they needed it? Why couldn’t he just help repair their damaged mental shields? Why couldn’t he carve out their secrets so they’d stop feeling guilty?_

The questions never stopped and Obi-Wan, who readily gave Anakin access to everything given that Anakin never hesitated to share his strength, thoughts, all of himself really either, doubted he was the right person to teach Anakin such.

But somebody had to.

And it certainly wouldn’t be Obi-Wan’s own Master who still hesitated to actually approach Anakin.

**X**

Qui-Gon didn’t know what he was supposed to do with Anakin and his own Padawan was no help. As the Jedi Master the closest to them, he’d been assigned to watch Anakin’s progress and the way his bond to Obi-Wan developed. It was becoming startlingly obvious with each passing day that Kenobi and Skywalker were Kenobi-and-Skywalker.

For all that the bond had snapped into place suddenly, it was much stronger than any Qui-Gon had ever seen before. It had taken six months until the two could be separated again for missions, not that Obi-Wan’s abilities had suffered from the six months temple-bound. The slight separation anxiety accompanying for their first mission aside, Obi-Wan seemed to have grown and suddenly his knighting didn’t seem all that far away anymore.

Qui-Gon knew that the moment he’d knight Obi-Wan, his Padawan would take Anakin and run off. Not away from the Order, Obi-Wan adored being a Jedi, it was his life, but he wouldn’t stay, of that Qui-Gon was sure.

Why would you, when the Chosen One, and Anakin was the prophesied one, decided to keep you by his side?

“You shouldn’t worry so much.”

Qui-Gon turned to look at Shmi Skywalker. When she wasn’t looking after her son, she was helping out in the crèche, reading in the library or working in the ship hangers. Truthfully, Qui-Gon wasn’t sure what to think of her. She was a kind woman, much more than you’d expect from someone who’d had to suffer as she did, but there was something ancient hiding behind her eyes daring everyone to try to wake it.

“What is, is,” Shmi hummed and handed him another cup of tea. “Listen and observe. We are meant to be here.” 

**X**

Obi-Wan was woken up one morning by Anakin pulling his blanket off his shoulders, which really wasn’t all that unusual if for the fact that Anakin had promised to sleep in his own bed tonight.

“Come,” Anakin said seriously.

“I have to get dressed first.”

Fond annoyance and impatience reached Obi-Wan over their bond, but he just sent amusement back. He got dressed quickly and wrote a note for his Master before sneaking out with Anakin. The eight-year-old led him through the temple until they reached the crèche.

“Anakin, are you sure-“

Anakin only held his finger to his lip in the universal gesture for quiet. Obi-Wan sighed and let the younger continue on. They came to a stop in front of the bed of a Togruta youngling, sleeping soundly.

“Pick her up,” Anakin instructed. “C’mon!”

Obi-Wan weighed his options. He could tell Anakin no, but then he’d just do it himself and that certainly wasn’t an option with how small he was. Defeated, he reached for the toddler and pulled her into his arms.

_Oh._

Anakin smiled and took Obi-Wan’s free hand to guide him out of the room and into one of the more open spaces of the crèche. Anakin then assembled pillows and blankets and made a more or less comfortable nest against one of the walls.

Obi-Wan sat down carefully and Anakin, as always, claimed his space on Obi-Wan’s legs and took the youngling from him.

“Her name is Ahsoka,” Anakin said adoringly. “She’s _ours_.”

The toddler didn’t seem to care much that she’d been stolen out of her bed in the early morning. If anything, she appeared to be much happier in Anakin’s arms.

 _Do I need a bigger bed now?_ Obi-Wan mused. It was bad enough when Anakin sneaked into his room in the middle of the night, but his bed couldn’t fit a second pair of legs kicking him. He’d like to get at least a couple hours of undisturbed sleep.

Anakin giggled and wiggled around in Obi-Wan’s lap until he was comfortable.

“We’re gonna fit,” Anakin declared and yawned. “Now sleep.”

Obi-Wan sighed and closed his eyes. At least they hadn’t left the crèche, that way hopefully not too many would scold them for sneaking in here and falling asleep. His back would hate him enough in the morning for sleeping while leaning upright against the wall.

_We can leave._

_It’s fine_ , Obi-Wan replied, poking at the new fledgling bond connecting him to Ahsoka. He wouldn’t want to miss this for anything in the world.

**X**

“I’m too young for a great-grand-Padawan,” Qui-Gon complained and not for the first time did Mace think that above everything else, Qui-Gon Jinn was the bane of his existence.

He, much like the rest of the temple, had been made aware of _the Kenobi-Skywalker-Tano_ situation and wondered if it was too late to abandon his post and go on a mission somewhere in the Outer Rim. Explore the old Jedi temples and search for answers he couldn’t gain on Coruscant.

“Wouldn’t Ahsoka be your second grand-Padawan?”

Mace regretted asking as soon as Qui-Gon answered.

“No, Anakin says he’ll teach her.”

There were barely five years between the two, if Mace calculated correctly. Were they really going to make an at best 18-year-old a Knight and then let him take a Padawan? Kenobi and Skywalker were already unusually close, but Tano?

“I need a break,” Mace muttered. Damn the Force.

But _they_ just grinned, razor-sharp teeth caressing Mace’s ears. _Will you listen now?_

_Not yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, this chapter was weird because it feels like one long set-up for events to come, which isn't exactly wrong, just strange to write because I needed to cover 4 years.  
> Either way, Anakin proceeds to make the Jedi uncomfortable by being incredibly attached to his people.  
> I'd love to hear what you think!


	3. Preparation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! And let's pretend I didn't update the chapter count again, yes?  
> Have fun!

“Do you know what every parent has to do?” Shmi asked Qui-Go over a cup of tea.

“Raise their child to the best of their abilities,” Qui-Gon answered easily.

Shmi hummed and turned to look at Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka meditating in the living room. Obi-Wan was the only one who actually sat like he was meditating while Anakin was draped over his lap and Ahsoka was resting her head on Anakin’s legs. Nevertheless, all of them were meditating, the Force swirling around them.

“I was prepared to leave Anakin here,” Shmi spoke up again.

“What?”

Qui-Gon couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming. Shmi smiled at him and nodded. He couldn’t correlate the idea of Shmi leaving Anakin at the Order’s steps with the image of the woman who just five years ago had forced Mace Windu to his knees with a single question. That Shmi, so headstrong and bright, hadn’t seemed like a woman who would cave in to the Council’s demands. She still wasn’t. She questioned the Council left and right, had made the crèche her chosen starting point for change. It was good for the Order. Qui-Gon was fairly sure that if his Master would just step into the Temple again these days, he’d actually stay, witnessing how much change had been quite literally forced upon them.

“If there was no other way, I would have left Anakin here because he needed to be here more than he needed to be at my side. This is what every parent has to do sooner or later. We need to let go.”

Shmi was looking at him and for all that she was still wondering about why the Force chose her, Qui-Gon knew. She had the same eyes as Anakin, the kind that saw right through you and stripped you bare.

“You need to let go, Qui-Gon,” Shmi repeated directly. “You’ve done everything you can for Obi-Wan. He is ready, more than most of young Knights I’ve seen. Now you need to give him the space to stretch his wings.”

“And fly away with Anakin?” Qui-Gon inserted, his tone bordering on the edge of upset.

Shmi smiled and sat her teacup on the table. “Why do you keep expecting everyone to always leave you?”

Because that was what people did, they left. But he couldn’t say that, probably didn’t even need to, Shmi knew anyway.

 _Let him go_ , the Force trilled. _He’s not yours to keep._

“I want him to stay.”

Shmi rolled her eyes and with the mischief of a youngling, she actually kicked his legs under the table. “You are of the Force, are you not? Then he will always stay by your side.”

X

When Qui-Gon finally recommended Obi-Wan for his Trials, Yaddle had the audacity to cackle. The old Master had taken quite a liking to Shmi, it shouldn’t surprise Qui-Gon they had been gossiping. In the Jedi temple, the only thing traveling faster than the Force, was gossip. In fact, all of the Masters seemed to have been expecting it. The only one who hadn’t gotten the message was Obi-Wan who nearly lost his composure.

“A great Knight, you will be,” Yaddle said. “Your Trials you may take, Padawan Kenobi, if you think you are ready.”

Qui-Gon had talked to Obi-Wan about his Trials, of course. He wasn’t as sadistic as his own Master had been and just dropped him in front of the Council without any warning whatsoever. Still, Obi-Wan glanced at Qui-Gon for reassurance.

“I am ready,” Obi-Wan said, his voice not wavering once. Maybe he hadn’t been the one who needed reassurance.

X

Objectively speaking, Obi-Wan knew the Trials were difficult. They certainly challenged him and he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before because of his nerves, but during his tests, he was laser-focused and having fun. He’d become a Jedi Knight like he had always known he would and he’d be one step closer to where we ought to be.

He did his best not to smile too widely when Qui-Gon cut his braid and said “Rise, Knight Kenobi.”

 _No blade shall ruin you_. _Fulfill your calling, go, go, go!_

All the pieces were suddenly assembling on the board. Obi-Wan didn’t know what game they were playing yet, but he had his sights set on winning.

X

“Honorable Council,” Obi-Wan began to speak and Qui-Gon was immediately about two seconds away from dragging Obi-Wan right out of the chamber. He _knew_ that tone and his just knighted Padawan had no business sounding like that yet. “May I make a request?”

It was deceivingly polite; Obi-Wan used that tone when he was informing someone of a decision he had already made and couldn’t be talked out of. Qui-Gon suppressed a sigh. He had hoped his former Padawan would wait another year at least before committing to his bond. Obi-Wan had surpassed all of Qui-Gon’s expectation, already a much more formidable Knight than many were after a decade, but he was young still. He had time, another four years at least he needn’t take on such a heavy task.

“You may speak,” Mace said.

“I want to take Anakin Skywalker as my Padawan,” was what Obi-Wan said, but what Qui-Gon, and every other Master actually heard was “I am taking Anakin Skywalker as my Padawan”.

Master Yoda frowned and Qui-Gon wished he’d be able to determine what he thought. His relationship with Obi-Wan and the Skywalkers was strange to say the least. He claimed the Force was clouded around them, it made him wary, yet, like a clockwork, he showed up for tea at least once a week.

“Certain of this decision, you are?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes.”

 _Destiny, fate, my dear Chosen, my children, keep them close_ , the Force laughed and then, with the might of a karyt dragon, they pressed down on them like they were guarding their treasure, forcing the air out of their lungs.

“Then go fetch your Padawan,” Mace pressed out. 

X

Ilum reminded Anakin of Tatooine in all the best ways. There were not so many people here as on Coruscant, listening to the sounds of the universe was much easier than it was on the crowded city-planet.

Obi-Wan had told him to have fun and enjoy the peace and Anakin was sure there had been a reminder in there as well about not causing any trouble, but he had been too distracted by how easy it was to breathe here. If not for the burning cold, Anakin was sure he could have stayed here for years and years to come. It was so easy to feel, his parent so close. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to pick just one crystal for his lightsaber. Not all of them called out to him, but he’d know how to use them anyway, how to shape them so they would fit perfectly.

“Anakin?”

Anakin turned around and saw T'Seely awkwardly standing behind him. Anakin didn’t have too many friends his age. It wasn’t their fault. He still didn’t always know how to whisper instead of shout, keep all the light inside instead of burning and how to cut off the decay infecting others without his teeth. He was much better with Ahsoka’s age mates who only knew him as Ahsoka’s friend who taught them that they were all infinite possibilities. Their minds weren’t restricted yet. T’Seely was Anakin’s friend though.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t like the dark,” T’Seely said. “Can I- can I go with you? You make it go away.”

Anakin beamed and all around him the crystals lit up, singing their own distinct song. Anakin was sure that if he concentrated, he could bring every Initiate the crystal they needed, but he supposed everyone else was supposed to face this trial on their own. “Sure!”

Anakin held out his hand and T’Seely quickly took it, staring at the caves surrounding them in awe. The artificial lights the Jedi had hung into the tunnels couldn’t even begin to this mirrored night sky surrounding them.

“It’s beautiful,” T’Seely said.

Anakin was glad he could make others see the universe the same way he did.

X

Training Anakin would be a lot easier if everyone else would finally start minding their own business. Life at the temple was almost back to normal for Obi-Wan again. The other Jedi had become accustomed to them and for all of their snide comments, Jedi were protective of their own. Once you become a part of their community, they wouldn’t abandon you. Obi-Wan was sure that if anything ever happened to him, or Anakin was in danger, their brethren would fight to protect them. They were stronger when they all worked together, were united in the Force.

But that didn’t mean that they could shrug away centuries of teachings about restraining yourself, even when the sun itself was scorching you.

“I _still_ scare them,” Anakin murmured into the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck, tears dried by now.

Anakin always smelled like storms and fire, but this time his scent was tinged with the distinct burn lightsabers left when they cut through hair. Perhaps Obi-Wan shouldn’t have told Anakin to let loose completely while fighting. Anakin had been the strongest Initiate, but from practice Obi-Wan knew he had been holding back while training even then. His Padawan might be only nine, but Obi-Wan was fairly sure he could give even a couple of the older students a run for their money. They didn’t just drop into the Force entirely unless they were fighting for their lives, unlike Anakin who had troubles staying out of it to actually learn proper stances.

“I know, I know,” Obi-Wan said, trying his best to comfort his Padawan. “I’m sorry. It’ll get better.”

“I’m not scared!” Ahsoka proclaimed and sat up straight, her elbows digging painfully into Anakin’s thighs. The child paid no mind to the abuse she forced upon her older brother. “You’re not scary.”

No, Anakin wasn’t scary, he was _terrifying_. In all his blazing glory and chaos it was so easy to feel like you were drowning. He was always watching, you were incapable of escaping Anakin’s grasp and Obi-Wan honestly couldn’t claim that he wanted to. There was a sense of belonging pulling him in and for all that he knew Anakin was so small he barely reached Obi-Wan’s hips, an entire galaxy was lingering within him, painfully constricted so it wouldn’t devour everything within reach. Even Obi-Wan got a headache when he attempted to perceive Anakin for too long. The sensorial input was simply too much, leaving him with the vague impressions of stardust and blood dropping from razor sheep teeth, a darkness so void of life that the crown of light around his head was so bright it could cut, claws sharper and so much more dangerous than any ‘saber that Obi-Wan wasn’t even sure if Anakin had needed instructions on how to use his saber.

And the wings of stained glass that never failed to remind Obi-Wan of the meditation hall in the highest tower of the temple.

“Not scary,” Obi-Wan reassured Anakin. “Not to us.”

X

Ahsoka was a big girl. She was _four_ years old already and the bravest of all her crèche mates. She would not cry when Anakin and Obi-Wan both had to leave the temple for a mission. If anything, Ahsoka should be celebrating. Skyguy was a Padawan now so he would be her Master very soon and then Ahsoka would be a Padawan and they would all go on a big adventure together.

“It’s our first real mission!” Anakin said excitedly.

He kept tugging on his Padawan braid. Ahsoka still thought it was strange that it was attached to him, though Obi-Wan’s had been the same.

“Just some diplomatic meet-up _and_ Master Qui-Gon is coming, but we’re going back to Naboo!”

“What’s Naboo?” Ahsoka asked.

Anakin opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again thoughtfully. He frowned the way he always did when he thought about some very difficult things that didn’t seem all that hard to her. Like always, Ahsoka just held out her hands for Anakin to take. Ahsoka liked speaking, singing, telling stories and making noises, but sometimes it was just easier to let Anakin show her _laughter, happiness, home and love and peace._

Oh.

“Are you gonna stay there now?” Ahsoka asked.

“No, not yet.”

 _Not yet_ , that only meant he would be leaving her in the future and suddenly all of Ahsoka’s resolve of before was broken and she started bawling.

“Don’t leave me! You can’t- I don’t- you have to stay!”

It wasn’t fair! She didn’t want Anakin to leave her, not even for some stupid mission!

 _I’m never leaving you,_ Anakin sang, voice like a thousand choirs. _You’re mine._

_Promise?_

Her brother smiled down at her, gently tracing all her markings before wiping away her tears.

 _Promise_.

X

Sometimes Shmi felt like she had just arrived at the temple. She still had a hard time calling any of the Jedi above the rank of Knight by their proper titles, nothing to say about her lack of education. Studying with Anakin had been for her own benefit as well, and her son was not lost to her, but Shmi wouldn’t be learning at his side anymore.

“Gone your son is now,” Yaddle said.

Shmi liked the mischievous Jedi. Whereas Yoda often hid his weariness beneath his amusement, Yaddle had no such troubles. She said what she believed and treated Shmi’s thoughts with the same importance she gave the great philosophers preceding even her.

“Ani will be fine,” Shmi said. “He has Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.”

“Yet troubles you sense.”

There were always troubles when Anakin was concerned, but not so much that Shmi had to be concerned. She had raised her son well, he knew he was cherished and loved. It wasn’t a job you could be done with after a while, parenting and children didn’t work that way. For all that the Jedi said a lot about attachments, they were fiercely protective of their lineages.

“A mission I have for us, my Padawan,” Yaddle spoke up again after a while.

Other times, Shmi felt like she had lived at the temple all her life. She knew their customs, the secret passages and the dances they taught their young.

“Master Yoda won’t be pleased,” Shmi said, her smile an exact mirror of her son’s.

Yaddle shook her head. “Pah! Never happy he is. His Padawan we must track down, lost he has become. Old Master Yoda is, and old his Padawan is. A stubborn lot they are and easily rile each other up. Good you are with younglings, good you will be for the whole Order. Help me cause some more chaos, my Padawan.”

Shmi began to walk beside her new teacher, retuning back into the temple and walking away from the ship hangers. When she had arrived at the temple, she’d never expected that her life would turn out like this.

“Yes, Dai Yaddle.”

Her teacher looked up to her, a proud look on her face. “A fine Jedi you already are, Shmi Skywalker. A great one you will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to cover everything up until Naboo when I started this chapter but there was too much set up to be done. Anyway! Obi-Wan gets knighted ahead of schedule and Shmi has a Master now. I did not actually mean to do that but I wanted her to have more agency so here we go.  
> "Dai" is from Dai Bendu, the language used by the old Je'daii order. There is like nothing on their language but "Dai" means "Center" and I figured it might also describe a person who has found their center, mastered themselves. I just couldn't see Shmi actually calling anybody "Master".  
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I got invested in cultural worldbuilding.  
> And yes, I updated the chapter count again.

Shmi Skywalker hadn’t left Coruscant since she had brought her son to the Jedi – and herself as well. It had taken her much too long to recognize that she wasn’t just taking Anakin where he belonged but coming home as well. Shmi’s family, the parents whose voices or faces she couldn’t remember, had traveled the stars. Shmi had been born in the wake of a supernova and while she had fooled herself into thinking that Tatooine would be enough for her, had tried to come to terms with her imprisonment of the small planet, it couldn’t possibly have ever been enough. Not now when she knew so much more about the galaxy and everything that tied life together.

_I told you,_ they hummed in amusement, almost a little too sharp as if they were ridiculing her. _Yours, mine, ours, you were born for this, will always be, return and remember and see-_

Something had changed in the last weeks. Shmi had been able to taste it on her tongue the same way she had when the dust had settled in her lungs after swallowing the air, trying to keep the screams at bay when she gave birth to Anakin. The Force was waiting for something, contemplating perhaps. It had talked less to her, or perhaps Shmi had become better at filtering their words.

“Look like a Padawan you do now,” Yaddle said, taking in Shmi’s image.

Shmi still kept her hair up, tied together securely as she had on Tatooine. Now, however, one long braid marked her as a Padawan of the Order. It was no chain as she had thought in the first weeks with the Jedi, but a mark of achievement.

“Your lightsaber, strong it is as well?”

“Yes, Jaieh,” Shmi replied and turned on the blade of fire.

When she had come her to Ilum, a desert made of ice, and held her crystal for the first time, she had thought of burns. She had wanted to take her crystal and assemble a blade strong enough to cut through everything. The violence of her own thoughts had surprised her. Fantasies of such cruelties were nothing new to her, hatred lingered in her bones deeper than any Jedi wisdom ever could, or so she had thought. She had survived because of her hatred, had loathed her Masters enough to not want to give them the satisfaction. But at the temple, surrounded by peace and family, she had almost forgotten what she was capable of.

Her Gathering had reminded her of it, as did the color of her blade.

Shmi turned it on and, on instinct, fell into the first defensive position Yaddle had taught her in the past days. The bright orange of her lightsaber reminded her of the twilights on Tatooine, the early hours when she had already been up longer than she had bothered to care, watching the sunrise. Her weapon was the color of the desert. Shmi had been made for something grander than it, but she could have died there so many times.

Her lightsaber was a befitting reminder of what control was.

“Good this is,” Yaddle said. “Spar, we should, hm? Train you a little more. Can’t have Master Dooku thinking that my Padawan is anything less than excellent.”

Her teacher smiled at her and Shmi grinned right back, joy tickling her spine and straightening her posture. She had learned self-defense at the temple. Every Jedi knew it, it was a part of their tradition, of _Shmi’s_ tradition. Nobody that was a part of their Order should ever be left defenseless. They may choose not to engage in combat, but they needed to know how to protect themselves.

“I am ready,” Shmi replied and jumped into action, a fierce and wild thing.

_Burning bright, sandstorm, death, all the hatred in the world and you are a delight._

Shmi had seen darkness and she knew better than to drown in it.

X

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Obi-Wan said as he handed Anakin a snack.

Qui-Gon wanted to throw his Padawan out of the airlock.

He knew better than to disregard Obi-Wan’s bad feelings, had learned that particular lesson painfully, and the fact that Anakin too seemed to agree with Obi-Wan’s assessment didn’t sit well with Qui-Gon. It was one thing for Obi-Wan to pick up on a disturbance in the force, another for Anakin to do the same. Anakin struggled with focusing and filtering through all the sensations the Force showed him. It was comparable to hearing an orchestra play, but instead of listening to just one, Anakin could tune in all of them at the same time and whereas some Jedi struggled to hear just the drums of one set, Anakin struggled to reduce it to one orchestra in particular. Whenever he did know something precisely, it tended to be important.

“Do you want to stay on the ship?” Qui-Gon asked. “I can do this on my own.”

Obi-Wan scowled at him and Anakin too sent him a little glare, though it was adorable on his face. Force, they were really taking a nine-year-old child who, by all means, should be an Initiate still, on a mission.

And it was a mission that was bound to go wrong soon.

“Just stick close to me,” Qui-Gon instructed. He still was the team leader for this mission given that it was Anakin and Obi-Wan’s first time out of the temple together. They needed practice too get used to one another in surroundings that were not their home. It was expected that they did little more than stand back and observe, learn each other’s habits. Then again, most Master and Padawan duos hadn’t already spent years adjoined at the hip before they officially became a pair. Obi-Wan’s friend Quinlan and his Padawan Aayla might be the only exception besides his own Padawan that Qui-Gon knew of.

“And Anakin, please no comments about what you think the members of the Trade Federation are up to,” Qui-Gon added.

Anakin had mostly stopped blurting out what other people thought or felt, but that was when it came to Jedi who knew how to shield their minds. His practice with civilians was limited. It was one of the reasons Qui-Gon believed they perhaps needed to integrate their younglings a little more with the common civilians. Admittedly, it had been Shmi who had brought up how _disconnected_ the Jedi were from the galaxy, though she too was admitting that it couldn’t be blamed on the Order itself, their integration into the Republic wasn’t as good as some might think it to be. However, Qui-Gon found himself agreeing more and more with Anakin’s mother. Where she had been shy to speak up first, she certainly wasn’t anymore. He wondered what exactly she would do now that Anakin and Obi-Wan were bound to leave the temple more and more often.

Then again, little Ahsoka Tano was also still running around.

“I know, Master,” Anakin replied.

Qui-Gon nodded once. “Good.”

Then the three of them boarded the ship of the Trade Federation.

All in all, it took a surprisingly long amount of time for the mission to go to hell. Qui-Gon had almost gotten his hopes up that whatever Anakin and Obi-Wan were sensing would take place after their negotiations, but he had been wrong.

X

Anakin was quiet when they touched down on Naboo. His silence gave Obi-Wan more reason to worry than he admitted to his Master. He loved Qui-Gon, he really did, but even Shmi had a hard time grasping the concepts Obi-Wan tried to explain to her when he attempted to verbalize his emotions and feelings when it came to his bond with Anakin. If he said something to Qui-Gon, he’d demand explanations Obi-Wan didn’t know how to give and so he kept quiet. Anakin was always loud in one way or another. Either he was shouting, chatting, singing, or humming – he didn’t enjoy total silence. Oi-Wan suspected that it made him stray too far or get lost in his own head – or the Force.

There seldom was a difference for Anakin.

And if he wasn’t making any physical noises, he was tugging at invisible piano strings, not playing any songs, not yet perhaps, but just watching them vibrate, attempting to figure out what it would mean if he pulled at them any stronger, creating an actual melody.

Now Anakin was silent, awaiting something.

_Is everything alright?_ Obi-Wan asked him quietly as Qui-Gon negotiated with the Gungan leader.

Obi-Wan hoped they could omit that in their report. Using mindtricks was always followed by a sharp questioning to ensure there had been no abuse of powers. It wasn’t exactly fun and prolonged every report by too many hours and pages.

_I’m fine_ , Anakin replied, though he sounded absent as if he were reaching for something, or someone distant.

_Your mother is alright_ , Obi-Wan reassured him. He wasn’t sure what exactly Shmi was up to, but she was likely causing troubles again. She was very much Anakin’s mother in that regard.

_I know,_ Anakin said, amusement coloring him like a spring a meadow with beautiful flowers.

Anakin’s silence continued until they reached the Theed Palace. Not even the exciting chase through the planet’s core startled him particularly, nor did he comment on the Gungan Qui-Gon had to drag with them. Obi-Wan hoped he turned out to be useful, otherwise he was going to go mad or do something he regretted.

_Or perhaps not_ , Obi-Wan thought as Jar Jar all but slammed into him, almost driving them off course.

The palace complex was covered by enemy droids. It was already worse than they had anticipated after seeing the droids on the ship and in the city. Making their way through the city had been difficult, especially with the Gungan and Anakin in tow. Anakin was good at hide and seek, his ability to disappear in the Force – or become one with them, Obi-Wan couldn’t differentiate it and probably would never be able to do so on his own until he too would pass away – was terrifying, but he was still a child.

And this was his first mission.

And it was kind of getting out of hand.

Obi-Wan had looked forward to a trade dispute as much as one could. He thought it would be something nice and easy, a way for Anakin to learn how to spread his wings without knocking anybody over. He had been wrong.

_Stay here,_ Obi-Wan called out the split second before he and Qui-Gon jumped down from the bridge on the palace’s second level, right into the fray.

They quickly dispatched the droids and once they were done-

_Oh, there your are, complete, oh look, how bright, how grand, change, and change, and how it must be-_

Obi-Wan almost fought the urge to press his hands against his ears. He had gotten used to the noise that came with the Force, but nothing could quite compare to a four-year-old mentally slamming all they were into your shields, ripping them down because they didn’t know any better, but it was still overwhelming. Obi-Wan turned to see what exactly had happened. They were still running, Anakin by his side, except that his Padawan was not really paying any attention to Obi-Wan or the battle at large but instead to one of the handmaidens?

Before Obi-Wan could waste another second thinking on it, they were attacked once more. Getting the ship to safely leave the hanger and then getting that ship out of the atmosphere was much more action than was good for his blood pressure, especially with the Force celebrating as if the universe itself had only just now been created once more and they were watching their new child with delight.

It was only after, once they had gotten out of the Trade Federation’s range, hyperdrive only barely intact, but intact regardless, that Obi-Wan could relax enough to take a deep breath and pay Anakin his full attention again.

Anakin, who was still sticking close to the handmaidens, now talking to them. While Qui-Gon discussed their next course of action with the captain, Obi-Wan tugged at his bond with his Padawan

_Anakin?_

Anakin turned away from the handmaidens to look at Obi-Wan and his expression fit they sheer joy the ship was brimming with. The atmosphere itself clashed almost harshly with the horror and grim fate they had just left behind.

Anakin rushed over to Obi-Wan and threw himself into his Master’s arms, eyes wide and bright and filled with stars.

_Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, do you see her?_ Anakin asked excitedly.

_Who?_

The girl, the handmaiden, the flower child _, she’s grand and can’t you see how the universe is shifting-_

_Anakin_ was shifting, his words becoming less tangible, more emotions and impressions, flickering images of hope and glory, and a wisp of colors.

“Real words, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, feeling his headache build up.

Anakin paused, then crossed his arms as he tried to think of a proper reply. It was a real struggle for him, annoyance projecting openly as Anakin began to pout.

“She’s wizard,” he finally sighed in defeat.

He glared at Obi-Wan like he was offended that Obi-Wan was forcing him to communicate on a sentient level instead of letting him properly express how taken he was with this handmaiden. Any descriptions in Basic that Anakin could think of were doing her a disservice. It was a little adorable actually,

However, Anakin’s reaction reminded Obi-Wan just a little too much of the way Anakin had talked and acted around Ahsoka when she had been brought to the temple. He was happy and excited and utterly convinced that this Padmé would create something grand. For Anakin to use such vocabulary, Padmé was going to create something planet-crushing.

Well, that only meant that they had to keep an eye out for her.

The rest of the trip to Coruscant worked out suspiciously peaceful. There were no further complications and Obi-Wan for one was glad to see Coruscant as he had never been. Anakin had, as predicted, spent quite a lot of time around Padmé and the handmaidens. While they has kept to themselves at first, over the course of the days, they had all but adopted Anakin as one of their own. It was easy to forget how young all of them were with Anakin dressed in his Jedi robes and the Queen and handmaidens wearing clothes and make-up that made them look much older. Around Anakin though, with his childish curiosity, they had been able to drop their acting at least a little, behaving more like the girls they were instead of planetary representants. When the Jedi left the Naboo entourage on the landing platform on Coruscant to be taken into protection by the Senate guards, their own senator absent as he was stuck in a meeting with Chancellor Valorum, they shared a heartfelt farewell, trading comm numbers if Obi-Wan saw correctly.

For their sake, and that of the galaxy at large, Obi-Wan hoped that their Senate hearing would go well.

After they had said their goodbyes, Anakin excitedly enumerated all the things he’d tell his mother about their first mission.

He somehow failed to mention that his mother was on a mission of her own, and Obi-Wan didn’t even learn about it until he stood in front of the Council, his Padawan to his left, his master to his right as they reported to the assembled council – minus one Master Yaddle, who had seen it fit to take her new Padawan to Ilum and then some.

X

Shmi and Yaddle managed to track down Dooku to a small planet far in the Outer Rim. The moment their shuttle touched down, Shmi was overwhelmed by a lingering sensation of grief. She knew this feeling, had experienced it herself so often. This world was just like Tatooine, rotten to the core.

“Teacher, are you sure he is here?” Shmi asked quietly.

She didn’t want to stay on this planet any longer than she had to.

“Sure I am,” Yaddle replied.

She was frowning, Shmi could tell she was reaching out with her mind before retreating into herself, building up stronger walls than she had before. The pain of this world was not easy to endure.

“Dissatisfied Dooku has become with the Order. Too ineffective we are, too blind.”

Yaddle’s voice was neutral but Shmi could feel her pain all the same. The Jedi were many things, but mostly, Shmi had found, they were struggling in a galaxy that seemed keen on tearing itself apart. It hurt to see something you adored so much harm itself beyond any reason. The Jedi hadn’t become apathetic or forgotten their path, they were simply exhausted and too few to attend to all infections.

“Many years he has spent on worlds such as this one,” Yaddle continued. “Let go of the suffering he cannot anymore. Teach him how to let go we will again.”

And then her Teacher took her first steps into this world, leaving the security of their ship and walking the streets. This part of the planet didn’t look too bad. The city was large and there were many lights, people dressed in nice clothes. It reminded Shmi of the streets just before the marketplace where the slaves would be sold. People would walk around there, happy and laughing, dressed nicely all while ignoring the crying parents and children just a few meters away from them.

“See the darkness, do you?” Yaddle asked. “Can lead us to it?”

Shmi only nodded in agreement and followed the screams no one was willing to listen to. She walked further into the city, deeper into it, where the buildings didn’t look pretty anymore but instead became broken down constructions. Sentients of all species were lingering deep in the shadows, hoping these new strangers wouldn’t come to hurt him-

_Far enough, no further, do not rush_ , _do not immerse-_

Shmi twitched and receded back into her own mind, refocusing. It was ridiculous that she still needed to be warned like that. Anakin was a child and had already grown far beyond his other parent’s guidance, not needing such explicit instructions. Or perhaps he had never needed them at all, being raised the way he was.

Shmi came to a stop in front of a warehouse.

“Here,” she said quietly. “He’s here.”

“Then here we must go.”

Shmi had asked Yaddle many questions over the years, but she’d never forget the conversation they had had over Yoda’s favorite saying. Shmi had been unable to understand it then, the difference between when the Jedi perceived as trying and what she had thought of. For a Jedi there was only what must be and what could not be allowed. You had to decide which path to take every day, least of all you stumbled and fell off the road into the darkness lingering below, distracting.

“We must,” Shmi repeated and watched as Yaddle simply walked through the front door of the warehouse.

Immediately upon stepping inside, multiple blasters were pointed at them. The group assembled inside was of mixed ages, genders, and species and in its middle stood a man in dark robes. If not for their cut, Shmi wouldn’t have recognized them as Jedi robes.

“Master Yaddle,” the man, Dooku as Shmi came to realize, said, surprise echoing in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Look for a wayward Master we can we not?” Yaddle replied almost cheerfully.

The bantering seemed to call the surrounding people down as they lowered their blasters. They still eyed them warily but didn’t seem to perceive them as a threat anymore. How strange, Shmi had never trusted so easily.

“You can,” Dooku answered. “I just didn’t expect it… In any case, who is your companion, Master?”

Dooku now turned to look at Shmi and studied her with keen eyes. It seemed like he could see right through her and any and all secrets she might have wanted to keep to herself.

“Master Dooku, meet my Padawan Shmi Skywalker,” Yaddle introduced.

“Padawan?”

Dooku’s eyes flickered to her braid, uncertain. “Forgive me, Padawan, but you don’t strike me as a child.”

“I am not,” Shmi replied, her voice like durasteel.

She had earned this, she had worked hard to come this far and she would not let anybody, not even a Master of the Jedi Order, question her place. Yaddle had assured her that she was right where she was supposed to be and that was enough for Shmi. She had learned how to trust herself and this path in the crystal caves of Ilum. She had a lightsaber, she was meant to be a Jedi.

“But I am a Jedi,” Shmi continued. “It is nice to finally meet you, Teacher.”

“Teacher?”

“You are a Jedi, are you not? Then you are a teacher.” This too Shmi had learned early on. The Jedi were proud, not prideful, and the happiest when they could teach. It was one of their core tenants, known to all but never verbalized: give all you know and have learned to the next generation so they may do better.

“And I have looked forward to meeting you. I have spent the last five years chasing Qui-Gon out of my kitchen. My son is a better cook than him, _Obi-Wan_ is a better cook and I fear that boy has ruined two of my pans.”

For all that Dooku was keen to keep a neutral expression, he couldn’t hide the surprise flashing over his face. “You know my Padawan and his student?”

Shmi nodded.

“I do, Obi-Wan has been knighted recently and has taken my son as his Padawan. The two of them are on a mission right now, together with Qui-Gon.”

Only silence followed Shmi’s statement. She knew Dooku wasn’t close to any other members of his lineage, otherwise she would have met him by now, or at least talked to him once. This too, it seemed, needed fixing.

Shmi had been mending clothes and wounds deeper than any lightsaber could cut for years.

_Break and purge the poison, heal the decay, the rot. Oh, beloved, the_ Force snickered. _Do you see why I chose you?_

_I do_ , Shmi replied and then, because she was feeling vicious, added, _and yet you never gave me a choice_.

The Force, she imagined, at least had the decency to act a little apologetic, sadness rising up like the winds before a storm.

_What is, is and what must be, will be. What never should have, but once was-_

“You are needed at the temple, Teacher,” Shmi said out loud, her hands clasped firmly at her back because this was not a battle and she was not in danger.

_We weep, we wept, we begged and snarled in anger-_

There was no point to lingering on what she could not change.

She was a Jedi, she moved forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW blood, self-harm, and vomiting. and a little bit of existentialism I guess?  
> And don't call me out on the updated chapter count, okay? I Know.

Padmé hadn’t been sure what to expect of their Jedi protectors when she had first met them. They had certainly protected them well against the invading droids, but they had still come too late. Her planet had been invaded, her people hurt, beaten, and forced to endure whatever cruelties she didn’t even dare imagine.

And all of that because the Jedi had been too late and hadn’t been able to talk to the Trade Federation.

For the first few minutes, adrenaline rushing through her veins, fear clinging to her heels and guilt squeezing her throat shut, Padmé had been angry like a child. She had been so incredibly frustrated at them and her own helplessness, even though intellectually she knew very well that it was not the Jedi’s fault that Naboo’s situation had come so far. If anything, she should be glad the Jedi had come at all.

Without their aid, Padmé would likely be rotting away in a cell now, or perhaps even be tortured, or be forced to watch her best friends be hurt just so that the Trade Federation would gain whatever advantage they were aiming for.

For the first time since she had been made Queen, Padmé truly doubted her chosen path. She wondered if any of the other candidates would have done better than her, but when she looked at Eirtaé she only saw the same worries staring back at her. In that split second Padmé was glad that it was Sabé acting as the Queen and that she as Padmé, the Handmaiden, could allow herself a moment of weakness where she didn’t have to hide her emotions.

It had been easier to be Queen when she was a mere representative of the government and not its whole body. The emergency laws now in power gave Padmé much more power than she should carry. They had been created when entertaining the possibility of an invasion, not because they had actually thought it would come this far.

Naboo was a part of the Republic – what use was the Republic if it could not protect its own?

She was bitter and exhausted and she wanted to go _home_. Not back to the suit in the palace, she wanted to go home to her family. She wanted to hug her parents and play games with her sister and leave this all behind and for once let somebody with more experience deal with it.

Unfortunately, this was not meant to be.

And whatever she had hoped to achieve in the Senate had also crumbled to dust with the Trade Federation once more speaking out against her. Bastards that they were, Padmé wanted to take out her hairpin and stab it right into the representative’s chest, see how he liked it when his heart broke as his people suffered and starved.

“Do you think going back is really the wisest option?” Sabé asked her as they got dressed. Padmé became the handmaiden once more as Sabé took on the appearance of Queen Amidala. It was really been a miracle and a blessing to have Sabé at her side. The Naboo were skilled in hiding their faces and their intentions, but Sabé and her had a special connection, or so it felt at times.

They were closer than sisters. Padmé would even go as far as to call them soulmates, two halves of the same mask.

“I’m not sure,” Padmé replied. She ought to be lying, to be reassuring her friends, but they would all just see through it. They had been taught to read her entire mind by the curl of her painted lips. “But what other option do we have?”

“Think the Jedi will come with us again?” Eirtaé asked. “They were useful, even little Ani.”

Rabé snorted out loud and tugged her hair beneath her hood.

“ _'Can I fly the ship? Do you know what planets are in this system? Have you ever had Alderaani pudding?’_ ” Rabé’s voice was a little high pitched as she tried to copy the voice of the boy. “ _’Do you know what makes a star collapse?’_ ”

They all sobered up at that last question.

Anakin had truly chattered endlessly during the whole trip, seemingly untouched by the events that had taken place around him. While his sunny demeanor had been nerve-wracking at first, Padmé had come to enjoy it. It was nice to focus on something that wasn’t politics for just a few hours at a time. Besides, Anakin had been so sure that they would manage to save her people. He had looked so serious as he had said it then, as if it was a fact already. Something about that had just made her want to believe him.

Truth be told, Padmé hadn’t thought that Anakin was old enough to be accompanying them, he was so young for such an undertaking. The Naboo were known for getting their children involved in politics at an age most systems wouldn’t even consider doing such, but he had still looked so much younger than them. Nevertheless, Master Kenobi and Jinn had treated him as their full mission partner.

But who was Padmé to judge the Jedi for their practices, especially after they had helped them so?

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t hurt to ask,” Padmé replied. “And Sabé never _did_ get to share her famed pear pie recipe with him.”

“Oh, don’t remind me!” Sabé groaned. “I’d kill for one of those now!”

The group of girls descended into blissful laughter, the death threats hanging over their heads fading into the background.

X

Anakin was distracted, Qui-Gon was exhausted and Obi-Wan had to prove to the Council that he was a capable Master and that this mission had gone as well as it could have. From the way the other Jedi Masters were staring at them, he got the vague impression that he was not being as convincing as he could have been.

“-and that was when we landed here,” Obi-Wan finished his statement. “Anakin has proven himself capable and followed my directives exceptionally well.”

The slight joke hit its mark as it did make many Masters smile, if not outright grin. It was well-known that Anakin Skywalker was a little stubborn and all too willing to do things his own way if he thought he knew better. Oftentimes, that ended in utter chaos, for all that Anakin had the knowledge of the entire galaxy stored in his head somewhere, he was still a nine-year-old boy and kids his aged tripped and fell.

It was Obi-Wan’s job to ensure he would also get up again.

“The Queen wants to return to her planet,” Qui-Gon added after he’d been silent throughout the entire briefing.

Obi-Wan barely managed to hide a wince. He had taken over leading their mission briefings a couple of years ago, preparing for his Knighting. Qui-Gon only really spoke up to add to it or, in the cases that had them all stuck up here for hours, to argue about whatever conclusion he had reached and attempt to convince everyone of his opinion. In that way, he was very much Anakin’s grandmaster. “She has called for a vote of no confidence after her Senator’s urging.”

And that move was more than just a little shady. Destabilizing the Republic leadership now was not exactly the smartest move, but Obi-Wan was not a politician and chances were that whatever upheaval would come, it wasn’t going to do much to the Jedi Order. The Senate leadership had become stagnant over the years and their relationship with the Order hadn’t changed much. With every changing terms, the Order maybe got some more requests from Senators that were usually talked over as everybody else was busy gearing up for a campaign. Involving Jedi in your political campaign was always a risky move as public opinion of the Jedi tended to vary a lot. It was a safer bet to keep them out of politics.

“They have requested that we accompany them again,” Qui-Gon finished.

“A wise course of action you think this is?” Master Yoda asked. “Tired Padawan Skywalker is.”

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both looked down at Anakin. He was exhausted, yes, reaching to somewhere far away, zoned out right up until Yoda addressed him.

“I need to go,” Anakin insisted, back straight. “It’s important.”

Obi-Wan actually wouldn’t mind handing the mission off to another pair of perhaps a more experienced Knights, but he knew that expression on Anakin’s face better than anybody else. He was determined to see this through and there was no telling what he’d do if he wouldn’t return to Naboo. Perhaps sneak onto the ship of the ones who would go.

“Are you sure?” Obi-Wan asked.

Anakin nodded, his sun-kissed face oddly pale. “Something’s coming. I need to be there.”

His tone of voice was ominous, his words dripped from his lips like a poisonous prophecy. The Force called and Obi-Wan heard its echo.

And with that their decision was settled.

X

They made a small stop at the crèche to greet Ahsoka. The excited youngling lit up as soon as she saw them and excused herself in only a short few words before she rushed into Anakin’s waiting arms. From there she quickly climbed upon Obi-Wan’s back and let herself be carried throughout the temple. They didn’t have much time here, not for more for a meal which they had to eat in the cafeteria as Shmi was apparently not in the temple.

“Where _is_ Shmi Skywalker?” Qui-Gon asked the nearest Jedi, a Nautolan Master only a few years younger than himself, as he got something to eat for himself.

“ _Padawan_ Skywalker you mean?” the Knight asked, their eyes twinkling with amusement.

Qui-Gon stopped shoveling fruit salad onto his tray. “Padawan?”

The other Jedi Master grinned. “Oh, yes. Haven’t you wondered why Yaddle didn’t attend the Council meeting? She decided to take on Shmi as her Padawan. It was the most brilliant thing.”

Obi-Wan turned to Anakin, who had been caught up in a silent conversation with Ahsoka, miles and two realities away from where they were. “Did you know?”

Anakin tilted his head at the question and closed his eyes for a brief moment, concentrating. When he opened his eyes again, they were a kaleidoscope of colors, a thousand worlds within his sight.

“Yes,” he said his teeth just an edge too sharp in Obi-Wan’s vision. “The kyber’s whispering to her now. She’s going to bring the cleansing fires.” Anakin’s eyes faded to their usual blue color, though the flicker of sunlight didn’t leave them as he reached for Ahsoka’s hands, holding them tight. “It’s not going to like it.”

“It? Who?”

But Anakin stayed silent.

X

After their meal, Qui-Gon got the notification that the Queen’s departure was delayed and so they had another two hours to relax. As expected, Qui-Gon was dragged back to the Skywalker’s rooms where Anakin and Obi-Wan repacked for their mission. Qui-Gon spent that time napping on the Skywalker’s sofa with little Ahsoka sitting on his stomach, rambling about what she had been up to since they had left the temple. Qui-Gon was fairly sure that when he had been her age, his teachers hadn’t let him even touch a training saber, but the child described in detail how much fun she had had training with one. Saying goodbye to her again hurt a little and silently Qui-Gon vowed not to abandon his lineage or active mission duty until he got to see Ahsoka fight and grow into the terror she was bound to be.

They took a speeder to the hangers of the Senatorial suits where the Queen’s party was already waiting for them. Qui-Gon was glad to see that all the girls were accounted for and visibly perked up when they spotted the Jedi approach them.

“Master Jinn, Master Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker,“ one of the Handmaidens greeted them formally. “We are glad you’ve decided to return to Naboo for us.”

“Of course,” Qui-Gon retorted. “That’s what we are here for.”

“Still,” she replied. “The Queen is aware that you are doing more than we can ask of you three.”

Qui-Gon inclined his head and opened his mouth to speak when suddenly the world _shifted_ -

Pain ripped through him, through the Force, sharp as a lightning strike. A sudden nausea overtook him and Qui-Gon felt as lost as he never had before, not even after Thal’s death. He thought he was drowning, lost in a storm, suffocating endlessly. Something was pulling him into the dark depths of an endless ocean. The void engulfed him and no light from the surface fell into his eyes, leaving him not just blind, but deprived of all sensations. Ice froze his flesh, broke it to pieces, chipped away more and more of himself until only his very soul was left and even then, sharp claws dug into him, pressed intensely into his mind like needles. His consciousness began to bleed, red drops of innocent compassion dropping to the floor like raindrops, becoming muddled with darkness and dirt on the ground.

He vaguely registered Obi-Wan next to him, Anakin too, his shields frayed and bleeding out like a body on a surgical table. Qui-Gon could feel Obi-Wan reaching out, tugging at his own light and crafting bandages out of them, helplessly wrapping them around Anakin’s very being in hopes of mending the never-ending number of cuts. Where he succeeded, the shields that had always been a little like mirrors, transparent glass reflecting your self in the Force, became durasteel walls of protection, cutting Anakin off so rashly that Qui-Gon was caught off balance. Anakin’s presence in the Force was near unbearable when they had first met him, but his absence was even worse, leaving Qui-Gon a starving man in the desert. On unsteady feet, Qui-Gon stumbled after Obi-Wan and Anakin, whom he thought to see running into the ship, fleeing from the monster they had uncovered.

“Master Jedi?” He thought he heard the Handmaiden ask.

He wanted to reply, and perhaps the words _‘security check’_ did leave his mouth, but he couldn’t be too sure, caught in this cruel spiderweb where every move only entangled him more, a prey ready for slaughter. He just walked forwards, hand pressed to his mind, clinging to the cool walls of the hsip, trying to stitch together what had been ripped wide open.

When he came to, he found himself rushing towards the fresher.

Obi-Wan sat there in the small room, looking so much like the boy he had taken as his Padawan in the aftermath of a terrifying trial he shouldn’t have had to go through in the first place. Qui-Gon had been so blind then and now he found himself struck with the same blindness, except the image that was starting to unravel was even worse.

Obi-Wan had collapsed against the wall and Anakin was half in his lap, clammy fingers holding onto Obi-Wan’s robes while his head was lowered above the toilet, vomiting up the few greens he had eaten for their last meal. His whole body seemed to twitch unnaturally like there was something hidden beneath his skin which was even paler than before. Anakin appeared like a ghost only inhabiting this shell for as long as it served its purpose, something much too grand pressed into this small body and rebelling against its constraints. Anakin kept throwing up until only acid burned his throat. He cried, tears running over his cheeks as the cold got closer and closer, so much that Qui-Gon expected to see his own breath as a hazy fog.

“Sssh,” Obi-Wan tried to calm his Padawan, his own eyes bloodshot, the afterimage of a night terror. “All is well, I’m here, we’re warm, we’re safe, all is well, I’m here…”

His ramblings were almost meditative, repetitive, drawing the same pattern, guiding Anakin towards steady breaths as much as they grounded Qui-Gon.

It took another few minutes, or perhaps hours, time slipped away as easily as the light of stars already dead thousands of years, Anakin managed to calm down. He was still a shivering mess in Obi-Wan’s arms, but he was no longer vomiting up his guts or crying uncontrollably.

“What-“ Qui-Gon couldn’t speak. He didn’t know how to describe it, this pain, this agony, the-

_Poison, darkness, decay, tor, burn it, BURN IT, IT IS KIL **LING ME, US, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF MY CHILDREN-**_

“There was nothing,” Anakin mumbled his soft voice a contrast to the screeching in Qui-Gon’s heart. “It was nothing, just the _absence_ , the end of space and of time and of life and he will deplete us of everything and there will be darkness and there will be no death, there will be _nothing!”_

Anakin’S voice grew more frantic, louder until Qui-Gon wasn’t sure if Anakin was truly speaking anymore or just carving his words into Qui-Gon’s mind.

“It’s infecting us, I’m sick, sick, _bilious_ , and all that bubbles up my throat are decaying orbits. It’s devouring my flesh and I will _leave_ and the fractures and bigger and bigger and it’s ripping me apart and I can see my heart _beating!”_

At this Anakin began to curl into himself, placing his hands on his heart. His eyes were glassy, seeing a world Qui-Gon couldn’t perceive and he couldn’t shake this double vision off. “It’s awful, take it away Obi-Wan, I don’t want to be here, I want to go, I want to go, it’s hurting me, I don’t want to be bound anymore, help me, Obi-Wan, _please_ -!“

Anakin began to cry again, scratching at his own skin, deeper and deeper until the scratches turned red.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, his voice in a realm beyond panic. “ _Anakin_ , no, no, _no_ , dear one, _don’t_ do this.”

He took Anakin’s hands in his own, so he would stop harming himself, but Anakin only began trashing, resisting. They needed to sedate him and they needed to do it _now_.

“Sleep,” Qui-Gon ordered, focusing on Anakin.

He’d always been good with mind tricks.

Slipping into another’s mind, finding _cracks_ where to insert your own thoughts and demands. His Master had been worried about it when Qui-Gon had been young. It was an ability easily misused, an ability that made him quite valuable in the right circles if word got out about it and his Master had been keen to protect him from it.

Qui-Gon would be the last to claim that he didn’t rely on it a little too often, but he was also one of the Jedi often sent into the worst of the worst situations. He had never dared to use it on another Jedi, would never think of using it on _Anakin_ whose mind was an uncomfortable place to reside in even when he was peaceful.

There were certain boundaries in every mind. They shifted ever so slightly in every person depending on what you had experienced, but with Anakin, it was simply as if they had never been there in the first place. Qui-Gon didn’t want to look at what rifts ran through Anakin’s mind because he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t lash out and pull him in and swallow him whole. He’d be entrapped in the universe, in the melting point of a star, the heart of existence and he wouldn’t be able to escape.

But what other choice did he have?

“Obi-Wan,” he said, his Padawan’s name command, prayer, and apology all at once. Obi-Wan was the only one so deeply connected to Anakin that he could bear to stand in his revelation. He understood Anakin as much as anybody ever could, to a degree that was foreign to even Shmi and would likely also never be within Ahsoka’s reach. The bond Anakin had forced upon Obi-Wan when he had been driven more by instinct and need than wisdom and control sang with power.

Qui-Gon begged for the same strength.

There was no gentle way of doing this with Anakin.

Qui-Gon took one last breath of sweet air, then he stepped into the wildness of space. It was freezing, but not the all-consuming cold of before, that took from him until he had nothing left, not even his mind. This was cold of existence, the contrast between the endlessness and points of existence near stars that were just ticking bombs, waiting for their final explosion.

All of this was Anakin and Qui-Gon didn’t know what to reach for.

He followed a path of broken glass, sharp emeralds, kyber, dug into his bare feet, leaving cuts all over. Every step was agonizing, depriving him of his strength and taking more than a century. Around him planets were born and destroyed in the same breath as Qui-Gon moved past them into the tangled cadences of orchestras, strings tugging him in different directions, asking him to follow their tune. His vision swam with colors repainting the world he saw.

And still, despite it all, he carried on. The temptation was sweet, he knew he could be home here, in this place where he had been born and where he would go once he ended.

He was one with the Force and the Force was with him, always.

But Qui-Gon refused that they truly wanted him to remain here. This was like Ilum, the innermost sanctums of the temples he had visited, a trial to prove himself.

And Qui-Gon would not fail this child who needed him.

He pushed through another door and found himself embraced by the most humbling of experiences.

“How cruel they were,” Qui-Gon muttered, gazing upon eternity imprisoned in a mortal mind. “Forcing you into this.”

Anakin wept and tried to tear at the chains pinning him down, keeping him constraint in the body that had been crafted for him. He was a mess of blood, stars, nebulas, stories written in languages that had never been spoken and never would again.

Anakin hadn’t been meant to possess a consciousness, Qui-Gon realized. He hadn’t ever been supposed to exist at all. The Force had pushed a scalpel into itself to carve out something that could eradicate all its other infected wounds, but, as with all self-inflicted injuries, this action too had damaged it.

It was the utmost cruelty, to themself and to the being they had created. This task was too much for one person. The entire galaxy was a bleeding, festering wound and Anakin couldn’t be enough to clean it, never mind do all the stitches to close it afterward.

And here Anakin was now, trashing because he had become aware of the darkness growing right beneath their noses. He was panicking because he had glimpsed upon his purpose in this world and had understood down in his very core that he was _lacking_ despite all the gifts he had already been given.

Anakin cried and cried, and Qui-Gon had to watch as the same gentle feathers he sometimes saw flickering outside his vision on his Padawan’s back were trying to cover Anakin’s many all-seeing eyes, take away that horrible truth he had choked on.

But Obi-Wan, for all that he likely understood more of the Force now than Qui-Gon had up until now, was still so young and not strong enough.

Qui-Gon didn’t know if he would be strong enough, but what kind of Jedi would he be if he didn’t at least try?

“Let me teach you one last thing,” Qui-Gon muttered.

Messing with memories was a delicate task. Qui-Gon had read as much about it as the temple archives had permitted him too. He had been terrified at fifteen that he might overpower his hold on another’s mind and would erase their self completely. That in his demand of obedience the Force had gifted him with, he wouldn’t heed its gentle encouragements and push beyond all reasonable requests.

The Jedi were skilled when it came to the manipulation of ones’ self or mind. Revan came to mind, a Jedi made Sith and forged into Jedi again. It hadn’t been perfect, hadn’t been stable, but this needn’t be either.

It just had to be enough.

Qui-Gon laid one hand on the first chain tying Anakin down and tugged at the Force and the way they bound the world together. He just had to reshape it, turn cold metal into warm blankets, not keeping him chained up, but giving Anakin a place to rest and retreat to. If Anakin forgot that these chains were meant to bind him, then perhaps he would cease struggling against them.

One by one Qui-Gon reworked the chains into sweet comforts and watched as Anakin closed his eyes, returning to a peaceful slumber. The child, so much larger than Qui-Gon in his own mind, impossible to entirely understand his beginnings and endings, didn’t grow any smaller. He nevertheless calmed, stopped struggling so that Qui-Gon had to worry less and less about Anakin accidentally cutting himself at these manipulations.

Only the future would tell how long these would hold him back and grant him peace of mind.

Or if Anakin would ever forgive him for this once he discovered how Qui-Gon had warped his reality just to keep him tied to them a little longer.

“It is done,” Qui-Gon announced, his voice echoing in the small fresher.

His knees buckled under him and he caught himself on the washbasin only in the last second.

Anakin was asleep in Obi-Wan’s arms, dead to the world.

“Is he- is he alright?” Obi-wan asked, clinging to his Padawan as much as Anakin was holding onto him.

Qui-Gon observed the steady rise and fall of Anakin’s chest, then sighed only tiredly. He felt much older than the years he had counted, the millennia within Anakin’s heart not fading away as quickly as he’d like them to.

“He will be,” Qui-Gon promised.

He didn’t know if he was lying, but he knew he was not speaking the truth either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> So, uh, that happened. But yeah, ever considered how needing a chosen one to bring balance to the Force is actually a bad sign because it means you seriously fucked up so much that the Force itself needs to rip itself to shreds to fix it? Hahahah jk unless,,,  
> But yeah, this story follows the dark side = poison characterization.  
> I'd love to hear what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is nearly 5k i can't be bothered to beta read we die like clones so here we go  
> TW for body horror like the last chapter. And the description of worms.

Padmé followed the Jedi’s sudden departure into the ship with a neutral expression, her confusion and worry hidden behind a mask of polite observation. Subtly in a manner that nobody who wasn’t a part of her court would be able to notice, she called for her Handmaidens’ attention. She inclined her head towards the departing Jedi and spoke a wordless question. Her friends replied in kind with curled fingers, brushed against their sleeves. They weren’t aware of the Jedi’s intentions either.

Padmé loathed being kept out of the loop, as the Queen of her people it was her duty to be more aware of the galaxy at large than others, but she could not linger on the gaps in her knowledge or she’d risk becoming distracted. Trusting the people that had protected her so far, Padmé put them off her mind for a moment to focus on the Chancellor’s arrival instead. It occurred to her that the Jedi had run the exact moment he had stepped upon the platform, but that ought to be a coincidence. Chancellor Palpatine had always spoken highly and kindly of the Jedi, trusting their words and actions.

He was a good ally to have, even if he underestimated Padmé’s dedication to the Naboo.

“My Queen,” Chancellor Palpatine addressed Sabé, wearing her disguise and playing her part of the loyal bodyguard. “I must ask you to remain here for your safety at least once more.”

As instructed, Sabé denied him with Amidala’s iron will. “I must help my people.”

It was Queen Amidala’s duty to reassure her people that everything was going to be alright and in case of failure, to fall with them. She would fight tooth and nail to prove that the Trade Federation was subjugating the Naboo and she’d do everything she could to protect them. If that meant that at the end of the week, the Naboo would need to select a new Queen because she had died a martyr, then so it would be.

“We have made our decision,” Sabé spoke for the Queen.

The Chancellor smiled once more, sad and grandfatherly. His eyes darted to Padmé and for a split second, she was sure that he knew who was actually wearing the Queen’s mantle right now. Palpatine had been her predecessor’s Senator already and he had been eager to support her too. Padmé was glad to know that even if they failed, he’d still be there to protect the Naboo from the Chancellor’s rank. He would ensure that the cruelty they were dealt with would not go unpunished.

And with that, they left the platform and headed towards the ship.

X

They were granted barely a few minutes’ reprise before they had to talk to the Naboo again. Qui-Gon desperately wanted to abandon this mission, but he was not enough of a fool to discard Anakin’s warnings, spoken in determined declarations about the proceedings of the mission. As the most stable out of all of them, Qui-Gon was the one who went to talk to the Queen and her entourage while Anakin drifted off to a hopefully dreamless sleep and Obi-Wan caught at least a few moments of rest.

“I apologize for the rash absence, we thought it best to get security checks underway as quickly as possible,” Qui-Gon lied with a silver tongue.

He was good with words, always had been. Mind tricks were twice as effective if you chose befitting instructions. His Master had been very keen to impose that knowledge on him.

“You are forgiven, Master Jedi,” the Queen said, her face impassive as ever. “Do not worry about it.”

She was more in control of her expressions than most of the Padawans her age. The burden on her narrow frame, hidden behind layers of robes and make-up, was much too large for her to carry. It was a harsh reminder of how much their Order had diminished that the children of the galaxy could not act as mere representatives, trusting the Jedi to keep the peace of the worlds they governed.

“Where are Master Kenobi and Anakin?” one of the handmaidens inquired. As similarly as they all dressed and acted, this one Qui-Gon could pick out a little more clearly. It was Padmé for sure, the ringleader of the group. He wasn’t entirely aware of the way the handmaidens were structured, but they all appeared to look to her for guidance when questions arose.

“Anakin was feeling a little under the weather,” Qui-Gon excused. He had to handle this delicately, not imply weakness of any kind. “He must have overgorged himself on sweets back at the temple. Don’t worry about it he’ll be as cheerful as before in a short while. We can proceed with our mission as planned.”

Or so he hoped at least.

He watched as all of them got settled in the small meeting room and listened to their plan to retake the city. It was rough to say the least, built more on hope than true knowledge. They had no idea how bad it had gotten in their absence, how much of the information they had gathered from the transmissions that had been sent out, was actually representative of the current circumstances. Qui-Gon could only hope that it took the Trade Federation much more effort to control all these droids than it had appeared to at first. If the Federation’s invasion of the planet went just a little slower than what instinct told him, they’d have already gained a massive advantage.

Obi-Wan showed up halfway through the meeting, visibly dead on his feet for everybody but Qui-Gon. Nobody commented on his appearance or appeared to take notice of how haunted he looked. Qui-Gon counted it as a win as Obi-Wan let nothing of his exhaustion show as he offered brilliant insights to their plan. He had grown into the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon could only dream of and there were no words capable of describing how proud Qui-Gon was of his Padawan.

After many hours of discussion, dragging deep into the night cycle and the sleep they desperately needed, they finally ended their meeting and the two Jedi had a chance to discuss what had taken place just mere minutes before they had left Coruscant.

“How is Anakin fairing?” Qui-Gon asked quietly once they were out of earshot of the Naboo.

“Still asleep,” Obi-Wan replied as they retreated to their quarters. It was fortunate that they had been able to switch to a slightly bigger and better-stocked ship capable of defending them against assault. The fact that the three of them now could also share an actual room instead of sleeping somewhere in the common areas was a relief as well. Qui-Gon had slept in the most horrid places in the galaxy and had also gone entirely without rest before important battles, but he’d rather not do that now with his grandpadawan so hurt.

“I’m still not convinced that staying with the Naboo was the wisest of moves. Anakin is in no condition to fight,” Obi-Wan said darkly. “He could get hurt, he could _die_. He’s just-“

“A child?” Qui-Gon interrupted his padawan softly. “Yes, Anakin is indeed a child with an immense power I can barely begin to understand, you know him far better than I could ever hope to. But one of the first things you must realize as a Master is that you have to trust your Padawan.”

Obi-Wan only raised a questioning brow at him and Qui-Gon was more than well aware of all the ways his Padawan was accusing him of not following his own advice.

“I know, I know,” Qui-Gon laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, Padawan, I’m not without flaws. But trust Anakin when he says that he has to be here. As I did, you could feel in the Force that Anakin was right, so we ought to trust in him and in the Force.”

Obi-Wan huffed with almost childish petulance, then he let the tension drain from his shoulders and leaned towards Qui-Gon, asking for comfort in a way he hadn’t done in years.

“The Force, should we really trust them so?” Obi-Wan asked with a small voice. “You saw what they did to Anakin.”

Qui-Gon had indeed and it had made him want to grief horribly.

“I saw what they did to themself,” Qui-Gon corrected him lightly, before he could say more, a soft voice interrupted their conversation.

“Obi-Wan?”

The two of them turned their heads to look at the far left corner of the room where Anakin was sitting up in his bed, tiredly rubbing his eyes. “What happened?”

“What do you remember?” Obi-Wan asked, rushing to Anakin’s side and pulling his Padawan close. “And how do you feel? Is everything alright? Do you have a headache? Does anything feel off?”

Anakin only shook his head. “There’s just a little ache.” He shot Obi-Wan an annoyed look, pouting like the young boy he was. “I’m fine, Master.”

Obi-Wan wouldn’t have it and continued fussing over Anakin, searching for any signs of illness.

“Anakin, what is the last thing you remember?”

“Darkness,” Anakin muttered and wrapped his blanket closer around himself as if he were freezing. “Darkness and the void. Nothing. The absence of living, the absence of _death_. It was wrong. What happened after?”

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon exchanged a look. They couldn’t afford another breakdown now.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Qui-Gon replied. It was him who had tempered with Anakin’s mind, if anything had gone wrong and would hurt him later, Anakin should not blame Obi-Wan who loved him so dearly. “Not now at least, maybe after. But Anakin, the moment you feel something strange again, you have to tell us. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you have a bad feeling, you report it.“

“I will tell you everything, I _know_. I’m not doing _this_ for the first time.”

Anakin said it with much conviction that Qui-Gon wanted to weep. This was Anakin’S first mission outside of the temple and none of this should be familiar to him, except for all the ways it already was. He had been and still was a part of a greater whole, he hadn’t been meant to be an individual created from nothing to do the unimaginable.

“Anakin, do you have any idea what this void could have been?” Qui-Gon asked carefully.

Anakin shook his head.

“No, I’ve- I think I’ve seen it before. But it all feels dull now as if covered by a heavy blanket, or snow.”

Qui-Gon supposed that was to blame on him. He didn’t know what had set Anakin off like this and Obi-Wan wasn’t aware of any cause either, but it couldn’t be anything good or remotely associated with the light side. If something so dark had crept to Coruscant, then Qui-Gon needed to inform the Council as soon as possible, preferably right now but he still had other duties.

“And you’re sure we’re all meant to be here?” he continued his inquiry.

“Yes,” Anakin replied, then abruptly cut himself off as his eyes focused on Qui-Gon, not looking directly at him but through him, down to his deepest core. Qui-Gon felt seen and understood, _watched_. “I- I think so? I want it to be.”

He sounded surer about the second part of his statement and so Qui-Gon resigned himself to these uneasy answers. The Force hadn’t been clear in centuries, why would it suddenly become a crystal clear water?

X

It _itched_.

His entire body, his mind, it itched, like a thousand insects running over his skin. Anakin wanted to scratch open the curst of a healing wound, peel it away and expose the blood beneath. The vivid image burned itself into his mind so deeply that Anakin was tempted to ask Obi-Wan for bandages for a wound he couldn’t find.

The disturbance within himself was scaring him. Anakin wasn’t used to being caught unaware, he saw too much, knew too much, but he simply couldn’t figure out what was disturbing him. He searched and tried to track the hurt, the pain, but he couldn’t find it anywhere.

The time until they reached Naboo passed quickly, but Anakin could hardly pay any attention to it, too distracted by that horrible urge. It took his breath away and he wasn’t sure how he was ever supposed to live again when all that he could feel was this horrible itch.

X

The Jedi were distracted when they landed on Naboo. Padmé could tell that they were doing their utmost to hide it, but their demeanor had changed too much from when they had first accompanied them. Besides the obvious exhaustion following the two older ones, little Anakin was not as chatty as he had been the first time around. He kept to himself and the confidence with which he had filled Padmé before was slowly losing its effect. It returned her to her early childhood, the moment she had learned that the lake spirit didn’t actually steal her teeth to build little rafts for the frogs. It was as if a spell had been pulled from Padmé’s eyes and she was suddenly aware of some greater horror she shouldn’t be able to feel.

The whole crew noticed it, but every time she thought of asking, she saw something out of the corner of her eyes. She considered herself to be an attentive person, but something was clinging to Anakin that wasn’t quite there. A shadow, a disease, draining the life from him and each time Padmé thought of it, it only seemed to grow worse.

The Jedi appeared to be aware of it as well, which was her only consolation. Padmé knew too well that she couldn’t help him, and somewhere it made her grimace that she wanted to save the people who were supposed to be her people’s aid.

Resigning herself to her limited capabilities, she put the Jedi’s odd behavior from her mind and focused on the mission at hand instead. She risked her safety for her people without a second thought, stepping forward and kneeling where the Naboo did not kneel.

They were a proud people and they did not treat anyone as lesser.

They didn’t bow.

But Padmé did.

Anakin didn’t seem too surprised to learn that she was the Queen, and neither did the two older Jedi. It surprised Padmé only minimally that they were able to tell it, the stories said that the Jedi had all kinds of mysterious powers that could hardly be explained. If this one meant that they had known who the actual target of the Trade Federation was, so be it.

“I cannot thank you enough,” Padmé told the Gungan leader as they prepared for war.

Her earlier promises, _I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war_ , taste like bitter poison on her tongue, but Padmé avoided speaking on it and none of her handmaidens reminded her of it.

Politically, this had the potential to turn into a nightmare, no matter if they won or lost. See had made promises to the Boss Nass that she actually had no power to uphold, but he hadn’t known what her status of Queen truly meant, and nobody had seen it fit to inform him. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t kind, and her youth was supposed to protect her from such decisions, but Padmé had not become Queen because she was naïve. She’d simply have to accept this new reality.

“Yousa no worry, Queen,” Boss Nasa said. “Great fighters the Gungan are. We will win!”

The Boss’s determined declaration certainly motivated his own people and they were certainly much more used to fighting than any soldiers of the Naboo. Padmé simply had to trust them.

Trust didn’t come easy to Padmé. She had always been a greedy child who wanted to do everything now and on her own. Putting the fate of Naboo in the hands of people she had never interacted with was terrifying her, but she had no other choice.

Getting to Theed meant passing crying citizens, weeping children, and devastated parents, and Padmé was sure her mind was being overtaken by grief. This was all her fault, had she just reacted quicker, known better what to do in the face of such an adversary.

“Don’t worry,” Anakin muttered at her side. “All will be well.”

But how could he say that when he looked like death himself? Padmé couldn’t understand it. Sneaking into the hangers proved to be difficult and she wished she had an army of a hundred at her back instead of just a handful of people.

But Queen Amidala had to prevail.

X

The nausea was back.

It nearly made Obi-Wan stumble and fall when he felt it, the backlash of Anakin’s perception hitting him at full power. Panic dug its talons into his throat. He thought that Qui-Gon had fixed it, at least long enough that they could finish this mission in peace and feal with its fallout in the temple. Obi-Wan had no idea what he ought to tell Ahsoka or Shmi if they returned Anakin in a state as fallen apart as he had been on the ship. He didn’t want them to know how helpless he had been, how much he had still needed his Master to clean up his mess. Obi-Wan had been so sure that he had been meant to take Anakin as his Padawan already despite his age. He had been so sure and he ought to have been able to look after Anakin on his own.

The Council had trusted him with Anakin’s wellbeing, it was the only reason he had been allowed to take Anakin as his Padawan.

His stomach turned as the hanger doors opened.

A shadow stood in the entrance, something like the monsters out of the crèche stories, oozing corruption and fear. The darkness clung to it and the coldness was settled deep within its bones, sucking all the warmth out of this place.

“It’s here,” Anakin breathed, his voice projecting more over their bond than audible in the world surrounding them.

Obi-Wan turned to his apprentice to see him staring at the figure with ashen horror, shaking from the same cold that was freezing Obi-Wan’s hands.

Anakin was terrified, that much was obvious to Obi-Wan. He couldn’t think back to a single time he had ever seen Anakin so shaken up before. He hadn’t even looked like this when they had met in the temple’s halls so many years and the world had started to make sense for the first time in his life. Now Obi-Wan had witnessed Anakin expressing such fear twice in such a short time. All the years by his side and Anakin had never been so scared, only ever slightly disturbed at most.

“Stay back,” Obi-Wan told him as he saw Anakin reach for his lightsaber. “Don’t engage.”

Anakin’s eyes, more than Obi-Wan cared to count at that moment, widened and he opened his mouth to speak in protest. “But I-“

“Obi-Wan is right,” Qui-Gon said. And then he turned to their attacker. “Identify yourself.”

The shadow’s voice was surprisingly soft. Obi-Wan had expected screeching, a sound like nails on a blackboard, the desperate cries of a person slowly bleeding out, and yet his voice was more like a soft spring breeze, flowers shaking gently on a meadow.

It stood in total contrast to all that he embraced.

“I am Darth Maul and you are to die here, Jedi.”

Obi-Wan turned the phrase in his head, imaging all the different meanings he could derive from it. _You are to die, you are destined to die, I have been ordered to kill you_.

But none of those implications were as shoking as the title the shadow had used.

Darth.

_Sith_.

The realization shook Obi-Wan to the core. It couldn’t be true. They had killed the Sith over a thousand years ago. There were so many dark places in the galaxy, but this particular destruction they were supposed to have exterminated.

And yet, if one of them was standing in front of him now, that meant the Jedi had failed, that somewhere a dark lineage had fallen through the cracks and been allowed to sow torment across the galaxy.

If Obi-Wan’s assumptions were true, he had least had an explanation for Anakin’s reaction. The Sith were a parasite, corrupting the Force entirely.

It was hurting _Anakin_ , his Padawan.

“Anakin, stay with the Queen,” Obi-Wan ordered.

“But-“

“Go!”

He would not let his Padawan face this darkness. Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber the same time his Master did and took on a defensive stance. Ob-Wan wasn’t one to favor Soresu, preferring the Form his Master had instructed him in, but perhaps this once it would have merit to prefer defense over offense. He kept half an eye on Anakin and the Queen’s group as they escaped, trusting Qui-Gon to alert him the moment the Sith would move.

This Sith, however, seemed entirely uninterested in joining in combat as long as the group was still there. Curious, _strange_. Obi-Wan’s grip on his lightsaber hilt tightened as he felt Anakin guide the Queen’s group outside.

Then the Sith began its brutal assault.

X

Darkness, so did Maul’s Master claim, was the only place where you could truly be yourself. Everyone who walked in the light was weak, unable to stand the bruises of the dark side, its sharp teeth that only strengthened you even when you felt them tearing through your veins.

Maul had never doubted it.

He knew he was strong, not yet anywhere near his Master’s level, but he was powerful. Maul followed the dark side of the Force and it was with him always, dragging him down into the depths.

He grinned as his blade pierced the body of the Jedi Master.

The old man was a fool and the pain and fury on his apprentice’s face were delicious. It tasted like honey on his tongue, all the delicate sweets his Master had kept from him.

Maul hadn’t doubted his victory then, not even when he had begun fighting the other Jedi, his strikes full of fury. Not even when he was standing on the edge of the pit, did he doubt the darkness.

Only when he felt the fear rush through his body, a shock he had never experienced before, and found himself falling, falling, _falling_ deeper into the darkness did Maul wonder about the light.

And he decided that he hated it as the darkness that had birthed him swallowed him once more.

X

Padmé was grinning victoriously when Anakin’s previously joyful expression, celebrating the defeat of the Trade Federation, changed into an expression of shock and twisted pain. The boy abandoned the group without any regard for them, rushed out of the throne room, and crashed through the windows they had entered the second floor from. For just a split second, Padmé thought she saw the glass splitter hung around Anakin’s back like feathers, then the boy was gone, plummeting downwards.

“The Jedi-“ Captain Panaka began to speak, “did he just-“

“I’m sure it’s important,” Padmé insisted.

They had done it. Her trust and faith in the Jedi hadn’t been misplaced. If Anakin had somewhere else to be right now, it was important.

“Let’s resume negotiations, Vice Roy,” Padmé said and turned back to their captive. This was her arena again, she didn’t need the Jedi’s help for this. All around them the droid armies had already stopped at the behest of their leader, and miles above the pilots had managed to breach the blockade. Queen Amidala of the Naboo had won.

Long live her people.

X

The itch was gone.

It should feel like relief, but it didn’t because all that Anakin could think of was the torture that had replaced it. Obi-Wan’s terror, fear, anger, and hopelessness washed over Anakin like a tidal wave. It pressed him below the surface, stole him from the heavens like the boy with the wax wings, not careful enough in his flight, caught by a kind stranger who didn’t understand.

Anakin didn’t run through the palace so much as he tore to the very fabric of space, bypassing the inconsequential means of transportation. What use was space to him, if not to serve as an anchor for time and to keep him _here_. Anakin had always been able to see more to see beyond his own time, and he doubted that this ability would cease to exist any time soon, so why should he not also break through the fragile walls of space?

The Force was all that mattered and it was everywhere, except for the places Anakin couldn’t _see_.

And Qui-Gon was going to a place Anakin couldn’t see and Anakin wasn’t going to let him.

He belonged to Anakin. Not in the way Obi-Wan or Ahsoka were his, not quite, but he was of Anakin and Anakin would not allow him to disappear into the darkness.

When Anakin came to, he found himself flickering to Obi-Wan’s side.

Obi-Wan’s wings of fire turned to ashes as he tried to keep his Master’s heart with them. It wasn’t enough, it would never be enough to save Qui-Gon’s life. Was this what he had feared the entire time, what had taken away his peace of mind?

Anakin could see the strings creating Qui-Gon’s fate, twisting and twining, a beautiful and colorful mess. They were meant to be snapped here in this place, to return to what was holding the Force together on the other side. His parent was going to use Qui-Gon to stitch up something he couldn’t quite understand, not _yet_. It was one of the things that hurt, a sensation that reminded him of reaching through the fog to gain the knowledge he already should have after seeing the darkness and hearing its voice sing.

_No_ , Anakin decreed. They weren’t going to take Qui-Gon.

He was going to stay right here with Anakin and he would not leave.

_Cease this_ , his parent ordered, grief brushing against his mind, but Anakin rebelled against it.

He loved Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan loved him and Anakin didn’t want his parent to take Qui-Gon, even if it meant more torment. Qui-Gon just had to stay with them here in the world that was simple and not made out of all that was and would be.

_There will be poison and worms tearing through your skin, carving their tunnels_ , his parent said. _There will be corruption and pain and the infection will not heal without him._

_I don’t care_ , Anakin shouted back. _Let there be poison, let there be Darkness_.

Just creating the concept of darkness within his mind hurt Anakin, it took him back to the platform on Coruscant, made him want to throw up again, and claw at invisible chains. He shouldn’t want darkness, but right here he did not mind because it was Qui-Gon.

Anakin stuck his hands into Qui-Gon’s bloodied gut. He ripped feathers from his back, stuffed the bleeding wound with glass fragments, sharp and beautiful in all the ways that mattered. It was a mess. Anakin could always heal superficial flesh wounds not tied into destiny or fate, but repairing broken strings, the very manifestations of the way the world works, was so much more difficult and yet Anakin wouldn’t stop.

He sewed the wound shut with all the desperation of the universe, the pain of a thousand stars exploding, crushing the planets surrounding them with relentless heat. It left the wound ugly, oozing puss and sickness, all the darkness that Anakin should not wield. Touching it made him cut his hands on the broken shards, tore the skin from his fingers and left awful lesions.

He was vaguely aware of Obi-Wan holding him close, his hands on Anakin’s shoulders, his name on his mind, grounding him in the _here_ and keeping him away from his parent’s domain so that he would not get lost retrieving Qui-Gon’s strings.

And then Anakin was finished.

Qui-Gon lay breathing on the floor, his wound fixed as fast as it could without time playing its role. He wouldn’t die here and Anakin would not lose what tied him to his mother’s flesh.

His hands were twitching, bloodied messes and he couldn’t even feel Obi-Wan’s touch on them, a useless attempt to heal them. Anakin already knew that they wouldn’t. He had inflicted these wounds upon himself and they’d need time and care to heal on their own.

Anakin sunk into Obi-Wan’s embrace, his wounds staining both their robes red, but at least there were two hearts still beating in these halls, while a third stuttered to the uneasy rhythm of a world changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!!!  
> Your comments on the last chapter seriously blew me away!!! Like. Woah.  
> Thank you so much!!!! I'm glad you're all enjoying this story!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in time for the holidays!  
> Remember when the chapters of this fanfic were short? yeah, me neither.
> 
> We are not going to talk about the increased chapter count.

Dooku didn't know how, but Shmi Skywalker had known that something had happened to her child before the call of the Council had even reached them. She had looked up in the middle of her katas, paling rapidly. Dooku had heard of Masters sensing their Padawans' distress before, had experienced such with his own reckless students, but never with such intensity and days' travel in hyperspace away from his children. Still, Shmi continued with her tasks with the same dedication as before her foreboding and did not panic when they got the actual notification two weeks later, telling them that Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn were already back on Coruscant, apparently all in a miserable condition.

Padawan Skywalker the elder's stance on the whole situation caused Dooku to reconsider his rude behavior during their first meeting. She had known that something was terribly wrong, had felt it deep in her bones when no one else had, and yet she had endured, done her Master proud, and fulfilled their mission first. When they arrived back at the temple, a place Dooku had been away from for too long as he had forgotten the warmth of its embrace, she dutifully made her report to the Council, under the many concerned eyes of the assembled Masters. And only when she had finished her statement, answered all questions, she excused herself and left to visit her son.

If anyone still doubted her place in their order after these actions, Dooku wouldn't hesitate to challenge them himself for her honor, though given her quick wit and skill with the blade, she'd hardly need anyone to fight her battles.

Shmi didn't ask him if he wanted to come with her, but she also didn't stop him when he fell into step with her. She smiled at him, kindly as if she were his Crèchemaster, ready to console him, and not a Padawan as they silently walked to the halls of healing.

Dooku hadn't been there when the Skywalkers had joined the temple, but he had heard of the impossible terror that was Shmi's child.

Yet, somehow, all those rumors couldn't compare to meeting him in person. He looked innocent and human enough, sleeping in his Master's arms, a small togruta child stretched across the both of them. Then, suddenly, he woke and within the blink of an eye, Dooku found himself pinned against a wall, electric blue eyes focused on him with previously unknown intensity.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan was awake a second later, holding down his student's arm as if that could lessen the pressure on Dooku's chest. "Anakin, stop it, we're home, it's alright."

Disorientated, the child blinked at Dooku, curiosity and confusion entering his gaze as if he were seeing Dooku for the first time. Then whatever might have kept him in a chokehold, stopped and the boy fell back into his Master's arms.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin sounded puzzled when he spoke up. His voice was rough as if he hadn't spoken in days.

"Hello, Anakin." Though Dooku knew that his grandpadawan was hardly older than twenty-five, the exhaustion wearing him down made him look decades older. "Are _you_ awake now?"

Anakin tilted his head. "Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

A shadow passed over Obi-Wan's face. "No reason. Do you know who is visiting us?"

More hastily than before, Anakin's head whipped around and turned into the direction Shmi was standing in. "Mom!" he exclaimed and, after carefully pushing the third child off his lap, he jumped out of bed to rush to his mother. He hugged her tightly, burying his face in her robes. "Mom, I missed you."

Shmi Skywalker, showing no sign of fear, worry, confusion or anything such as that about her son's earlier actions, only embraced him just as tightly.

"I missed you too, Anakin," Shmi said and kissed the top of his head.

Anakin didn't let go of her, but his eyes drifted to the lightsaber clipped to her belt. Without another word, Shmi took it from the belt and handed Anakin the blade. Anakin examined it closely, ran his fingers across the metal hilt before handing it back to his mother. "Your crystals sound nice. I like them."

"I'm glad."

As mother and son continued talking, Dooku managed to get to his feet, still shaken by the assault the others pointedly ignored. He crossed the distance to the bed Obi-Wan and the now yawning youngling were lying on and sat down on it. He disliked showing such weakness, but he couldn't exclude the possibility that his legs might not hold him upright should he continue to stand.

"What was that?" he asked.

Obi-Wan sighed and the youngling whose presence Dooku could not quite explain sat up and gently patted his cheeks, making the young man smile.

"It's a reflex, mostly," Obi-Wan explained. "Anakin isn't quite over what happened yet and lashes out when he thinks we are threatened by something or someone he doesn't recognize."

Obi-Wan's elaboration failed to clear anything up and if the boy didn't look like he hadn't slept in a week, Dooku would claim he was purposefully misdirecting. "We are in the Jedi temple. What is there here that he fears?"

What had _Dooku_ done that Anakin assumed his own lineage would attack him?

The look Obi-Wan was giving him was downright chilling, damning, before it slowly turned into incredulity. "I thought that was why Shmi— You don't sense it, do you?"

He sounded flabbergasted.

"No," Dooku said. "What is there to sense?"

Discomfort and wariness settled in the air, so heavy that Dooku was reminded of the invisible hands around his neck.

"The taint, the poison, the rot clinging to your light," Obi-Wan said slowly. "The darkness."

It sounded like judgement.

X

The first thing Qui-Gon recognized was noise.

It was loud around him, familiar voices speaking out. When he tried to open his eyes, he found the task impossibly challenging. He fought against the voice telling him to rest a little longer, that he didn't have to wake quite yet, but Qui-Gon had always been a stubborn one, unwilling to follow orders he deemed unnecessary.

"Master!"

When light began to fill his vision, Qui-Gon looked into the face of his worried Padawan, missing his braid and looking as distraught as Qui-Gon had seldom seen him before.

"Obi-Wan?" he tried to say, but his voice wasn't cooperating, so whatever left his mouth, it couldn't have been his apprentice's name.

"It's me, Master, yes." Obi-Wan understood him anyway, clever and wise as he was. Qui-Gon had given his Padawan a much too difficult time when he had still been his student and not a Knight of his own regard. He could hardly imagine being any prouder of Obi-Wan than he already was

"Master Qui-Gon!"

His vision became clearer and allowed for him to see Anakin and Ahsoka sitting just beside him on the bed, Shmi behind them and there, right next to her—

" _Master_."

"Save your strength, Qui-Gon," his Master urged him. If Obi-Wan had looked distressed, Dooku appeared downright hysterical. Qui-Gon was quite ready to believe this was all a hallucination now. As far as he knew, his Master had sworn off returning to the temple for at least another decade and even if he were here, he certainly wouldn't seek out Qui-Gon, no matter how injured.

"Rest some more," the imitation of his Master said. For just the shortest of moments, Qui-Gon was reminded of the time he had been a youngling just a few months older than Anakin and Dooku, not even quite Obi-Wan's age then, had panicked over his sickness. It had only been a mild cold, not the blinding hot pain chaining him to the bed now, but Dooku had told him to rest then with just the same cadence and care.

"Everything will be better after you've slept."

The illusion said the same words as his Master had then and just for that alone, Qui-Gon was inclined to believe him, even if he couldn't sense him, sense any of them properly.

Qui-Gon didn't know how much time passed between the intervals he was actually closer to consciousness and those he was inaccessible to the world. It felt like centuries passed within the blink of an eye. Regardless, whenever he woke, Dooku was there, dutifully sitting at his side as if Qui-Gon were still a child. It was reassuring anyhow.

The morning Qui-Gon woke and didn't feel like he needed to drop right back to sleep, he was greeted by the image of Dooku reading while the children were playing some board games on the bed next to his.

Qui-Gon decided to observe them just a minute longer before he spoke up.

"Am I dreaming, Master?"

Dooku immediately dropped the datapad and the others stopped their game, Qui-Gon's voice breaking this strange atmosphere.

"Qui-Gon!" it came from all sides. "Are you alright?"

He felt half-blind as if he had lost a sense he had always taken for granted, but, staring into the guilt-ridden expression of Anakin, he realized that lying had never been easier. "Yes, of course. What did I miss?"

From the look his lineage was giving him, quite a lot.

X

Ahsoka was _young_ , but she wasn't _stupid_.

"What happened?" she asked Obi-Wan. The real adults wouldn't tell her anything for sure, but Obi-Wan just might because he was Anakin's the same way she was Anakin's, and he was theirs, and that was all that mattered. "Anakin is _different_."

He was hurting, though he tried to hide it. His pain and his fear scared him, which in turn only upset Ahsoka. She wanted everyone to be happy and healthy, but the world had shifted when she hadn't been there and it hurt.

"I—" Obi-Wan hesitated, so Ahsoka crossed her arms in front of her chest like she had seen Shmi do when she wanted to know something and nobody was willing to tell her. It made Ahsoka feel taller and more grown-up. Obi-Wan would have to tell her the truth.

"I want to know," she repeated. "Now."

Obi-Wan studied her for a few moments longer, then he sighed. "Anakin did something very foolish and difficult and Qui-Gon did something just as stupid and now everything is a mess."

Ahsoka could tell that he was trying not to use big words with her, but it only felt like he was attempting to get away with saying less.

"What did they do?" Ahsoka asked. "I want to know."

The need was pulsating under her skin, edging her on, licking at her arms like hot flames, urging to demand and not stop until she had forced the truth from his mouth, the ugly thing that was closing his throat.

"Anakin saw something really, really bad and dark," Obi-Wan said. "So Qui-Gon helped him forget that."

"But isn't that good?"

Ahsoka thought it was. It should be. If Qui-Gon took away what had hurt Anakin, then Anakin was going to be better now. That was how helping others worked. The others always said so; Shmi did too. The more you helped, the more did the galaxy heal.

"Yes, technically speaking, but… You know how the Force gives us warnings?"

Yes, of course, she did. Everyone always said to listen to the Force for their knowledge, but the Force had never warned her before she had stubbed her toe, so she wasn't _entirely_ sold on that yet.

"The memories Qui-Gon hid from Anakin were such a warning, so now we don't know what the Force was warning us from and since they are so well hidden to protect him, Anakin won't be able to recognize the danger again when he sees it."

Oh. That really did sound bad. "Did he anything do something stupid then to get back the memories?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "No, Anakin decided to break the Force a little to keep Qui-Gon here longer."

Ahsoka wondered whether that was the reason Qui-Gon's wound was healing so slowly and no pain medication truly helped. He tried to hide it, but Ahsoka's nose and eyes were better than humans'. She saw him tense, could smell the sickness. Ahsoka bit her lip. "Is that why Qui-Gon's Force is all messed up?"

She didn't know how to describe it in a better way. It felt a little as if Qui-Gon was made up out of strings and someone had cut them and then tied the ropes back together clumsily in haste, leaving a net that could catch his soul, but was incredibly messy.

"A little. There's no telling what messing around with the Force like Anakin did."

(And they wouldn't know for a long while what it meant to force something to live. No matter how good the intentions at that moment, the residue of his actions left Maul awake, alive, alight in the dark side, and _screaming_.)

"Is he going to be okay again?" Ahsoka asked.

When Obi-Wan didn't reply immediately, she climbed back into his lap and let him wrap his arms around her. Jedi were the happiest when they weren't cold, and her family felt as if they needed a lot of warmth.

"I hope so," Obi-Wan replied. "I really do hope so."

X

For the first time since he had gotten his first gray hair, Qui-Gon actually felt old. He was tired all the time and his control over the Force was atrocious and depended on the time of day, what he had eaten for breakfast, the weather, and whether somewhere halfway across Coruscant somebody had totaled their Speeder, or so it felt to him at least. There was no rhyme or rhythm to whether he could use the Force at all and what his control over it was, not even as his body recovered.

His gut wound hadn't healed entirely yet, and he continued to be haunted by its phantom pains. He knew that it hurt Anakin, that he felt _guilty_ , so Qui-Gon tried to avoid showing any of these weaknesses around the boy, but Anakin was an intelligent child and he noticed it anyway. Qui-Gon wondered if Anakin's sudden clinginess and paranoia resulted from his actions, actions he now had to justify himself for.

"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to sit?" Plo asked.

Qui-Gon wanted to reply with words as sharp as the edge of a knife, but he shouldn't. Plo was asking him out of worry and because they were friends, not to belittle him or point out his discomfort to him.

"I'm quite sick of sitting and lying down," Qui-Gon confessed. It hurt to admit this weakness, was he fully his Master's Padawan in this aspect, and against what his heart was telling him, he forced himself to say it out loud. "But a chair would be appreciated."

They got a chair for him and so Qui-Gon sat in front of the assembled Council, laying his mind bare for them to see and judge.

"Obi-Wan's report states that Padawan Skywalker had a breakdown as you boarded the ship to Naboo again. Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"And following this breakdown, you put a heavy mind block on him. Is this true as well?"

"Yes," Qui-Go replied, or maybe it would be more correct to claim he apologized.

He didn't regret saving Anakin then. It had come at a high price, his own mind still bleeding where he had cut himself on the kyber crystals of Anakin's soul, but he regretted that it had come to this at all. Trifling with a mind like this was nothing that could be taken lightly, and had the Council not asked to see him, Qui-Gon would have accused them of negligence. "I saw no other choice."

"What did you saw in his mind that forced you to act like this?" Mace asked.

"I saw a reflection of his own state of being, I suppose." His words sounded stuporous, too carelessly chosen, but he didn't know how else to describe this feeling. The more he attempted to elaborate on what he had seen, the more he realized that their language lacked the terms he needed

"I don't think the Force was meant to be anything more than something that binds the world together," Qui-Gon declared. "But Anakin… His existence defies that. He is the Force incarnate and it _hurts_ him, subconsciously. The Force is endless and in Anakin, they have to constrain themself to a body with mortal limits, a fact which unsettles him down to his core when he becomes aware of it. From my observations, which I fail to describe accurately here and I fear to share with the state of my own mind and control, merely having consciousness is unsuitable for a being such as Anakin. We have all heard the voice of the Force, its call and its will, but it doesn't _want_ as we do, as mortals might."

"But Anakin does," Plo continued his thought. "So you have the Force turned sentient, which goes against everything they ever were before, and suddenly they have to deal with the fact that Anakin has wants and needs that go beyond that of his parent."

"Yes," Qui-Gon agreed. "I think – or at least the way Anakin perceived it – the Force is shackling themself with his existence, in his existence. He became aware of it through a factor I have not yet determined, and that resulted in his breakdown."

"And so you decided to cover up these shackles."

"I did."

It was the only way he could have stopped Anakin from self-destructing.

X

The Force had shifted for the third time in less than a decade after so many years of slowly eroding away.

It was strange. Where once it was clouded, twisted, and shadowed as his Master and his Master's Master had crafted it, there was a rift now, a _clearing_.

It was shedding light on objects that should not be seen.

Darth Sidious pulled the shadows closer around himself and, throwing one last glance at his Master's dead body, decided to investigate.

He had need for an apprentice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I hope you had fun!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!  
> It's time we enter a new era!

“So, at what point are we going to talk about how utterly terrifying your Padawan has become?” Dooku asked his grandpadawan.

“We will not talk about it,” Obi-Wan replied, stubbornly watching Anakin execute another block. “Not yet, at least.”

“If you say so.”

Life at the temple hadn’t changed much in the past years except in all the ways it had. Dooku couldn’t explain how, though he certainly knew the why, but the entire temple seemed lighter, filled with a grace it had forgotten. He had missed the warmth and comfort of the temple and as it healed an infection it hadn’t been aware of, Dooku healed his own. He was getting stronger again, his shields better. He felt more at home than he had in all the previous decades.

“He is going to surpass you soon,” Dooku pointed out, watching Anakin fight in the training ring below. “It won’t take too long.”

“I am aware,” Obi-Wan shot back. The young man didn’t sound bitter, no, more scared. In all the years he had known him now, Dooku could count the number of times he had actually seen Obi-Wan Kenobi scared on one hand with fingers still left over. There wasn’t much to fear when you knew that the Force themself was your backup.

But there were some things to be wary of nevertheless.

“I have a meeting with the Chancellor later today,” Dooku stated. Palpatine was a sympathetic man who cared to listen for the Jedi, though Dooku would still prefer it if he were at least a little less interested in the going-ons of the temple. He didn’t particularly trust politicians, a sentiment he was proud to have installed in his lineage.

“Here at the temple?”

“Force, no,” Dooku retorted. “He wanted to, was quite interested in meeting the rest of my lineage as well after I told him of you.”

Obi-Wan’s head whipped around, taking his eyes off Anakin for the first time in minutes. “Did you say anything about Anakin?”

Dooku snorted. “Please, Padawan, don’t think me a fool. I’m not going to tell the Chancellor of the Republic that we are harboring the strongest Force-sensitive in centuries under our roof, who happens to casually break space whenever he gets too worried.”

“He hasn’t done that in a while,” Obi-Wan defended his apprentice quickly. It was true. While his control over the Force had been a mess in the aftermath of Naboo, little Anakin Skywalker had grown since. He had, and Dooku used these terms very lightly, become more _human_ , approachable. His Force presence wasn’t nearly hurtful anymore, and he had made a few more friends his age whose shields still needed some work, but not as much as they had before.

“But he can do it,” Dooku argued just to be contrary. “Just because he had learned some more control doesn’t mean that his sheer capability to do as he pleases isn’t enough already. In any case, if he continues insisting on practicing Djem So and settling on a form so early, I would suggest switching yours as well.”

Obi-Wan raised a brow at him. “To what? Makashi?”

Dooku would be delighted if his grandpadawan would follow his footsteps, but he didn’t think that was the path Obi-Wan should follow. “That you have to figure out yourself.”

X

Qui-Go was sick of people fussing over him. He was an accomplished Knight, had raised two Padawans to Knighthood, and done countless missions. He didn’t need to be treated as a Padawan going on their first solo-mission.

He had had time to recover. Force, he wasn’t even going on this mission on his own.

“I think it’s sweet,” Shmi said, smiling mischievously. “All of them are worrying over you.”

Qui-Gon fixed her with a blank stare. “Forgive me if I don’t think it’s overly reassuring to have a nine-year-old tell me to be careful and pack me an extra package of bacta patches.”

“Ahsoka means well,” Shmi pointed out and attempted to tug her hair behind her ear only to realize the traditional braid was gone. She sighed in frustration but still glowed with pride. Qui-Gon remembered how long it had taken Obi-Wan to get used to his changed hair cut.

“Still, did it have to be neon-colored bacta patches?”

“They will look very good on your handsome face. Now get going, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

Shmi ushered him up the ramp of the ship.

“As you wish, Knight Skywalker.”

X

“.. and I think I might just back out of politics for a while once my term is over,” Padmé said as she picked out her next outfit. Had she already worn this to a formal dinner with her advisors? She couldn’t remember. Where was Eirtaé when she needed her?

“Just, catch a break from all the troubles,” Padmé explained herself. She didn’t want to sound as if she hadn’t fought to serve her people. “Though, I suppose you don’t really get breaks, do you?”

“Nope.”

Even though she couldn’t see Anakin’s face, she somehow gained the impression that he was smiling at her.

“Yes, yes, laugh it up. And what are your grand plans?”

“Nothing much really,” Anakin replied. “Finish all my classes soon, get my credits, study lightsaber forms, figure out what the hell is giving me such a headache, become a Knight, train Ahsoka—”

Padmé froze. “Slow down. What headache?”

Silence followed her statement, but Padmé had been friends with Anakin Skywalker long enough that this was his attempt at dropping a discussion he didn’t want to have.

Thankfully, Padmé was a noisy person by nature.

“ _Anakin Skywalker_.” Padmé tried to put as much offense into her voice as possible. “You don’t just get headaches. Have you talked with Obi-Wan about them?”

“Yes,” came the frustrated reply. “And with Ahsoka and Qui-Gon and Mom and Dooku, and just about _everyone_ in the Order! Why am I never allowed to just be a regular person like everyone else? Why does it always have to be such a huge thing!?”

Padmé thought she heard the glass of her windows shatter, but when she turned around to look at them, they were still intact.

Silence fell in-between them as Anakin collected his breath, calming again. “I’m sorry,” he apologized after a while. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just so _frustrating_. The Force is… they feel as if they’re getting sicker by the day, and so am I. I think. I haven’t told that anyone else. They’d just worry about things they can’t fix.”

Padmé sat down on her bed, imagining she wasn’t planets away from her friend, but right beside him. “Do you think or know?”

“I’m not sure,” Anakin answered. “I used to think that nothing had changed. I remember that I upset my parent when I helped heal Qui-Gon, but I thought that would be it. They— they don’t speak to me as often anymore. It makes things more _difficult_.”

Padmé recognized that tone of voice, the slight echo to it that stayed even when talking over the holo. Anakin struggled to find the right words, to express himself in any way that still made sense to people restricted to the mortal plane.

“Difficult, how?” she prompted him.

“It feels like… Like the training wheels are off. The Force used to show me everything, how the entire galaxy worked. Now I can still see all the strings and where they will all lead me, but I can no longer see what they _mean_.”

She heard him sigh. “In any case, let’s not talk so much about it. It sounds stupid, but I’m glad we’re friends, Padmé. You ensure the world makes sense.”

And what a wonderous thought that was. Padmé didn’t think that she was doing anything extraordinarily helpful. Her rants about agricultural legislation wouldn’t lead to him figuring out his problems, but maybe Anakin just needed someone who was not constantly seeking guidance from a primordial power.

“Alright,” she said. “But if you do want to talk— “

“I don’t,” Anakin replied quickly. “Just— not now. Maybe later if that is alright?”

Padmé smiled. “Always.”

X

_He worries_ , Shmi told the Force. _Your absence frightens him._

The Force stayed silent.

Shmi had never been a person who lost control of their temper easily, but even she found that she was starting to get impatient. Years of the Force whispering in her mind, teasing her, begging, crying, and ordering, and _now_ they were turning silent. The closer to Coruscant she was, the more difficult it was to communicate with them.

As much as she had loathed them at times for all the pain they expected her to endure, she missed their breath on her neck, their strength in her blood. A sick person couldn’t heal others, but the warmth the Force did offer was unlike that Shmi could find anywhere else.

“I have to go,” she said out loud.

“Sure of this you are, Padawan mine?”

Shmi smiled at her teacher. “I haven’t been a Padawan in some time now.”

Yaddle only rolled her eyes and were she Yoda, Shmi knew she’d have to watch out for a gimmer stick. “My Padawan, you will always remain. Where do you think you will go?”

Shmi kept her eyes open, but she reached out as far as her mind could stretch, felt the wind caress her legs. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe— maybe I should return to Tatooine.”

That got a reaction out of the Force. They hummed the sweet song of the desert, the noise barely above a whisper.

_Yes_.

She needed to return to Tatooine

X

Ahsoka chewed on her pencil and tried not to get too distracted by the steady curses she could hear Anakin whisper across their bond, klicks away from her. Focusing on his and Obi-Wan’s adventures was just so much more interesting than her boring PolSci lessons. Soon she’d be able to go with them. They’d go on amazing adventures and Ahsoka would be the best Padawan this temple had ever seen.

That was if Anakin could hurry up and get himself knighted soon. She knew it was early, everyone knew it was too early, but Ahsoka was soon fourteen. She was already old for an Initiate and she didn’t want to be the last of her year to be picked just because the Council thought that Anakin should remain a Padawan a little longer.

Or Obi-Wan.

She started to think that the separation would be more difficult on him than on Anakin. Then again, Anakin could always reach them with less difficulty than they could reach him.

“Initiate Tano.” Her teacher didn’t raise their voice, but Ahsoka still reacted as if they had, sitting up straight. “What do you think?”

“Eh, what?”

The Jedi Master studied her for a moment, then they sighed. “The question on the board, little one.”

“Right, right.” Ahsoka looked at the whiteboard.

_What does the creation of a unified Republic army mean for the autonomy of single planets?_

Ooh, that.

“Easy,” Ahsoka replied and began to repeat the speech she knew Padmé was going to hold in less than a week. If there was one good thing about Anakin’s crush on Padmé, it was that Ahsoka had unrestricted access to all the Senate gossip she could make use of in her classes.

X

Obi-Wan loved his family. All of them, no matter how annoying they could be at times, how crazy or stressful. He loved them with all he had, so he took any pain against them with a heavy heart. Obi-Wan had learned how to grief and let go, but some emotions he just couldn’t shake.

He still carried the pain and guilt of his Padawan’s first mission. Anakin had been too young for the task assigned to them. His screaming as the Force broke around him haunted Obi-Wan like a miserable nightmare. They had yet to tell Anakin of what they had done to him, not really. Sometimes it seemed like Anakin might suspect what they had done, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he had deduced it and simply decided to let it rest or if he was ignorant to it.

Obi-Wan would always regret that he had let his Master erect the wall that kept Anakin from speaking directly to his parent, but he would never apologize for saving his Padawan’s life. Not when he smiled so happily and could barely contain his joy at seeing his friends.

“Padmé!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand it's time for AOTC.  
> I honestly didn't want to linger on the intermediate, so snapshots it was!  
> Some more details on the ramification of Anakin healing Qui-Gon because if you thought it would just be Qui-Gon's control over the Force being shot to hell for a couple years, you were wrong. Training wheels are off, time to unleash the baby deity with no sense of direction or purpose.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your throughts!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again :D

Padmé was ridiculously flattered by the fact that someone wanted to kill her. It showed that she was taken seriously by all who saw her as a threat and their enemy. Padmé thought that making the right type of enemies was a show of character. You could tell a lot about a person by people they surrounded themself with, even if not all companions had been freely chosen. Padmé had accepted Naboo’s Senator post with the vow that she wouldn’t be yet another member of Coruscant’s elite willing to go along with what brought the most profit.

Naboo’s Senators swore the same oath as their monarchs: _peace and justice overarching_.

She only wished that the price for it wasn’t so high.

Padmé had prided herself on the fact that she had never lost even one of her handmaidens, that from the beginning to the end of her terms, she had been able to release them from their vows and listen to them swear them once more.

She had to ensure that Cordé’s funeral would be conducted with the highest honors. Her sacrifice would not be in vain. The Naboo’s past was not without darkness, but Padmé had educated herself best she could and tried to learn from her people’s mistakes.

Her planet strove to be the peaceful center of the Mid Rim, but the last years had hardened them once more. Where their military had been one of the smallest in the region once, they had since become warier, more well-armed. Padmé knew that she wouldn’t go down in history as one of Naboo’s more peaceful politicians. She would be known for the harsh sacrifice of war, the blood of their innocents, and the justified outcry against the horrors her people had been subjugated to.

Protecting her people against even more torment meant fulfilling her duty here on Coruscant.

This was the reason she wasn’t looking at Palpatine with too much kindness. The man might be smiling and acting as if he cared for her health, but if he truly loved Naboo and the Republic as much as he claimed, he would encourage her to stay on Coruscant. Giving her Jedi protection was overkill. The Order could barely afford to spare one member, never mind two, and sending her away was absolutely unnecessary.

Palpatine had been her mentor growing up. He should know what dishonor this would bring upon Cordé’s family to know that their daughter’s charge had abandoned the post Cordé had died for. Padmé wanted to shout in outrage, but she knew exactly what that would look like.

So she agreed to the Jedi guards but she fought viciously against leaving.

She had survived this one assassination attempt, she could and she would survive another.

X

“It’s not fair!” Ahsoka complained, stomping her foot. “Why don’t _I_ get to visit Padmé?”

Anakin’s amusement brushed over her with light feathers and Ahsoka didn’t hesitate to push away his wings, uncaring if a few of his feathers got bent. She didn’t want to be treated like a little youngling incapable of thinking for herself.

“Because this is an official mission to a Senator in danger,” Anakin said slowly as if he were talking to a toddler. “This is not just a fun visit.”

“Well, yeah, but still! Padmé is my friend too! And it’s not fair that you get to visit your crush—”

“Ahsoka!” Anakin blushed as red as the bead on his braid, rightfully so. His infatuation with Padmé was so embarrassing. He was _awful_ at hiding it. Ahsoka had no idea how he managed to talk to Padmé with no trouble, but the moment somebody _mentioned_ her, he became a stuttering mess.

“I will shout it in every temple hall,” Ahsoka threatened. As Anakin just glared at her, Ahsoka was getting the vague sense that someone laughed with her.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Anakin said, arms crossed, and he leaned forward to stare her directly into her eyes, so Ahsoka did her best to mirror him.

“ _Watch me_.”

Moments passed with them glaring at each other until Obi-Wan broke the silence by opening the door. “What are you two discussing?”

“I want to go with you to visit Padmé,” Ahsoka answered without breaking eye contact. She wasn’t going to lose this battle.

“She’s blackmailing me!” Anakin exclaimed at the same time.

“About what? Your crush?” Obi-Wan asked casually as he put on his outer robes, preparing for the meeting Ahsoka wanted to attend so desperately.

Obi-Wan’s comment caused Anakin to break as he squeaked like a tooka kitten caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Obi-Wan only raised his brow at Anakin’s attempt to keep face. “Oh please, Anakin, it’s not really a secret. And even if you tried to really keep it a secret for everyone else, you couldn’t keep it a secret from me.”

Ahsoka grinned. Okay, perhaps she wasn’t going to see Padmé so soon, but Anakin’s expression more than made up for it.

X

Sabé wasn’t sure what was more hilarious, the way not-so-little-anymore Anakin Skywalker stumbled over his own words while praising Padmé, or the way Padmé desperately tried to cling to her professionalism while keeping from hugging him.

“Twenty credits they’ll do something rash, dumb, and reckless by the time the actual vote happens,” she told Eirtaé.

Her friend only snorted. “I’m not foolish enough to take that bet. I was there when Anakin told her about his illegal street racing and Padmé decided to share details of some of our expeditions, all lovestruck.”

The Jedi and Padmé were still discussing the arrangements for Padmé’s stay, but the way she and Anakin kept glancing at each other was almost too cheesy for Sabé.

“Fair enough.”

X

Most of the time, Anakin thought that he knew Obi-Wan as well as two people could possibly know each other, and then there were the few moments where Obi-Wan’s behavior surprised Anakin. Their mission parameters clearly indicated that they had to protect Padmé against all threats, preferably even anticipate them and eliminate them before they even reached her.

Searching for who exactly wanted to see her dead was imperative. It would just be overkill to send two Jedi, of which nearly both were Knights, otherwise. Anakin knew the Chancellor was protective of Padmé, she had spoken of him often enough during their calls, but certainly, he wouldn’t be wasting resources otherwise.

Obi-Wan, however, appeared to be perfectly willing to stick to bodyguard duty only, a job for which one of the Jedi on Senate duty would certainly be enough.

Arguing against him with fickle impressions of breaking ice and storming winds were bat away without another remark as Obi-Wan very nearly ignored him in his decision making. Anakin was not a snot-nosed Padawan anymore, and even at age nine he hadn’t been dumb enough to just rush into danger.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely the truth, but Anakin couldn’t shake the feeling that Obi-Wan was clinging to their bond as if it were made of spiderwebs instead of kyber crystals. Anakin just didn’t get it. Obi-Wan knew that he needed all the experience he could get, all the excellent mission reports so that the Council would knight him soon.

Even though Anakin and Ahsoka were Master and Padawan in all but name already, nothing could be officially done until Anakin was of the right rank. So far, nobody had made Ahsoka any offers. Everyone knew Anakin had staked his claim at eight years old, utterly in love with the child he knew would be great someday. Still, she was getting older and Anakin didn’t want anybody, especially Qui-Gon or Dooku, who both knew Ahsoka well, to get any ideas. His grandmasters had been a little too interested in Ahsoka’s lightsaber techniques lately for Anakin’s liking.

He wasn’t going to interfere, of course. Ahsoka deserved the best training the temple could give her, but he still wanted to be the one to impress and teach her someday.

Thankfully, when the danger came knocking, Obi-Wan didn’t hesitate in discarding all previously made plans and threw himself right at it, this time a little more literally than usual.

“Won’t he—”

“Don’t worry!” Anakin called out reassuringly as he rushed past Padmé’s attendants. “My Master won’t fall.”

He _couldn’t_.

Anakin’s control had been clumsy when he had first met Obi-Wan. Instead of carefully weaving a bond, he had dug his paint-covered fingers into Obi-Wan’s soul and mixed the colors until he could derive the shape he had dreamed of for so many nights.

He had crafted fine wings for his Master, wider than the temple was high. The Force might be silent here, his parent may have abandoned him to his own devices, but Anakin knew that the copper feathers would carry Obi-Wan everywhere. They might not be real tangible wings, capable of allowing him to soar in the sky, but they were made out of something much more precious, his favor and the Force.

Obi-Wan Kenobi would always make it through any and all dangers as long as Anakin kept his hold on him.

X

Mace couldn’t say that he had dreaded the day they let Anakin Skywalker lose on the galaxy without someone grounding him, but he was certainly wary. Anakin had grown up to be a brilliant Jedi. He still had some rough edges, as did all Padawans his age, but he was kind and, most importantly, learned from his mistakes. While Anakin wasn’t always particularly happy about admitting them, a character trait that might stem from his omniscient parent, he learned from his mortal flaws just like everyone else.

In this, Anakin Skywalker was very much still only nineteen and much too young for a galaxy as cruel as theirs had become. It was crucial that he counted his every step until he crossed the line, given that the power slumbering within him, still not fully awakened, could wreak havoc and wipe entire cities from the maps.

Not that Anakin had done so yet, but Mace suspected more and more that Anakin was a collection of chances not yet taken rather than limits imposed upon him. One fully trained Jedi alone could do the work of an entire army. There was no telling what Anakin could do when left to his own devices.

Obi-Wan was certainly not as convinced as the rest of them of letting his apprentice go on his first solo mission, but every first-time Master was anxious when their Padawan started to spread their wings.

“You will accompany Senator Amidala to Naboo, Anakin. Please don’t take any unnecessary risks and don’t draw anyone’s attention.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Anakin promised, the cadence of his voice just a bit closer to the echo that haunted Mace’s nights than he was comfortable with.

Mace would be a little more reassured that Anakin’s words were only that of a star-struck teenager if he didn’t sound so much like a shatterpoint when he spoke.

To be young and in love, what a terrifying state of being.

_Let him rise._

Mace’s expression stayed neutral as Obi-Wan and Anakin bowed and left the room, but deep within his mind, he dared to enjoy the presence of his confidant. It wasn’t often anymore that Mace heard the Force’s voice, but whenever they did manage to open their throat far enough that their teeth glinted in the sunlight, Mace had learned to listen.

It almost made him miss the days they would wrap themselves around him and sing long-forgotten melodies.

X

The further away from Coruscant Shmi traveled, the straighter she walked without any ashes attempting to choke her with every shaking breath. Shmi was seldom lost in either her mind or the physical world anymore. She had an entire Order of people at her back who adored and loved her, jumping at the chance to help without her even crying out.

The beginning of her life on Coruscant among the Jedi as one of them had been riddled with various difficulties. The way the Jedi just anticipated what you needed was a foreign concept to her. In theory, it was similar enough to the community found within the slave quarters, but in practice, there were klicks between the kindness offered by a fellow tormented soul and eyes staring straight into your soul, bypassing all your shields just to provide you the aid you needed but were too hesitant to ask for.

While Shmi had been incredibly thankful, she had also felt so _helpless_ , almost infantilized as if they assumed she couldn’t do a single thing on her own.

She had been wrong in that, of course. The Jedi were no mind readers, and Shmi’s shields were of the strongest within the Order, but the unexpected openness and living surrounded by heralds of the Force, had certainly given her a false impression.

Returned to the planet of her torment, binary suns and heat scalding enough to burn the meat from your bones, Shmi felt decades older than she had been when they had left it, yet her steps were lighter than they had ever been before.

Tatooine was a frequent point of discussion in the temple and the Senate as it was caught in-between two fronts, a bloody and horrible civil war, for the better half of ten years now.

This too was her doing.

Or her son’s, though Shmi didn’t want to place the burden of so many onto the shoulders of a child just wanting to make his mother smile.

She never wanted Anakin to return to this place.

“Who are you, stranger?” the guard at the door asked, holding their blaster just a bit tighter.

If Shmi wanted, she could reach into their mind and twist it, just walk past them without them ever noticing. She could take the blaster from them too, kill them quicker than they thought possible.

The Jedi hadn’t made her strong.

Shmi Skywalker had already been strong because the only other option given to her was falling into the dark pit of despair. Shmi hadn’t allowed herself to wallow in such agony, to start fading away as so many did because nobody would have been there to protect Anakin then.

Such exhaustion, giving in when you were at the limit, was a luxury for Core Worlders.

As a little girl, malnourished and tired, limbs longing for a rest, she had been taken aside by the older slave working with her in the kitchen. They had washed up her face and told her that she could rest when she no longer had a reason to wake up for. Shmi had built herself up on dreams and reasons, had never given herself the space to feel the depth of her tragedy.

No, the Jedi hadn’t made her strong and they hadn’t made her kind and they hadn’t given her a purpose.

They hadn’t even given her the freedom to make her own choices.

Shmi had gotten all of that by herself, by forcing herself to stand upright with hunched shoulders and eyes focused on the child at her feet, then running wild, armed with bloody detonators.

What the Jedi had given her was peace of mind. The ability to stay calm as the storm raged, not because she was terrified of the outcome if she gave up, but because she knew she could weather the storm.

Shmi was allowed to be scared and terrified still, but she could stand tall despite them, not in fear of them.

She pulled away her hood as she approached the two figures. “My name is Shmi Skywalker. I am a member of the Jedi Order and I am here to offer my help.”

The first guard didn’t react at all to her name, but the second visibly flinched; whether it was because of her name or her allegiance, she couldn’t tell, but Shmi hadn’t come here to deny either.

“Skywalker?” the second guard repeated and then, slowly, lowered their blaster. “Shmi Skywalker, who walks the dunes with her head held high and chained down the sun so she could give birth to it?”

That was one way of describing her, Shmi thought with a chuckle. Not too far from the truth, but not close to it either.

_Marvelous mortals, binding blinding truths—_

“Has Tal’oola been telling stories about me?” Shmi asked, thinking of the woman who had grinned at her, free with the night sky behind her, stars shining bright.

The guard smiled in turn and welcomed her into the palace Shmi has once been imprisoned in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shmi's part was my favorite I think.  
> Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another update? yes.

Obi-Wan felt marginally better when Padmé and Anakin’s transport finally took off. Smuggling the Senator off Coruscant in such a way was not without risk, but it was still the safer alternative to letting her return to Naboo in any official capacity. Such would only pose more danger for her own life as well as that of his Padawan’s.

Obi-Wan couldn’t stop his breath from hitching as he imagined Anakin slowly leaving Coruscant’s atmosphere without anyone by his side. He knew Anakin was ready for his first solo assignment, but he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling accompanying him. He hadn’t dared to say anything about it out loud yet. Years of his Master, his friends, and his Padawan groaning at him whenever he brought up that he ‘had a bad feeling’ had trained him out of the habit. He also didn’t want to distress Anakin any further. He had been holding up fine while talking to Padmé, but Obi-Wan knew the nightmares of his mother kept him awake at night.

Obi-Wan could only hope that whatever warning the Force was trying to send him, it wasn’t meant for his Padawan, but for Obi-Wan.

For now, he had a bounty hunter and their extraordinary weapon to research.

“Here’s to hoping Dooku didn’t annoy Jocasta again,” Obi-Wan mumbled. He was not looking forward to being the unwilling victim of their fights again.

X

Padmé couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so much.

In a quiet voice, Anakin told her of his adventures with Obi-Wan and the other Jedi. She had heard some of the stories before already, but she didn’t mind listening to them again, especially not when Anakin was practically shaking with excess energy while narrating them.

The experience of just seeing each other in the real world and be there within touching distance added a whole new layer to their conversations. Padmé had always been a physical person, an aspect that had often clashed with her personality as the Queen. Her wardrobe, yet another beautiful defense mechanism, was meant to keep people away from her. Only when she was surrounded by her friends and family could she relax and pull them close to her.

Over the last years, Anakin had become a dear friend to her. She didn’t always understand the deeper meaning of his words, couldn’t quite grasp what it meant when he described the Force as an endless air-bound water current, but she listened attentively anyway.

She didn’t think he was too interested in the Senate’s gossip or Naboo’s high society either. However, he still grinned when Padmé explained how Theed’s current Princess had embarrassed herself only to quietly curse in front of their Queen and ask for a do-over.

When they had first started talking, so many years ago, Padmé hadn’t been too sure whether they could actually keep a conversation going given how different their interests were. Her willingness to stay in contact had not just been because Anakin had been kind to her during their mission, but also out of pure selfish desire and hopelessness. What if the Trade Federation came back? What if the Senate was still too slow to act?

Naboo had needed someone in their corner and staying on good terms with a Jedi Padawan had been a smart move in that regard.

To her surprise, within weeks that thought had moved to the back of her head as she’d genuinely started enjoying Anakin’s company. Now here they were, ten years later, still smiling at each other and getting lost in those precious blue eyes—

_Oh no._

X

Naboo’s nature was the topic of many precious poems, worshipping it as the first and truest masterpiece of the galaxy. Everyone was quick to prescribe a trip to the countryside as an easy fix-it for all your troubles, claiming it worked wonders for the soul.

Padmé had spent a few weeks in the countryside after her tenure as the Queen had been over. She had taken a break to learn who she was as a person and who she wanted to be. Sitting at the beach, the water swirling around her feet, she had begun to write an itemized list of topics she wanted to address as Naboo’s future Senator.

She had been still a bit naïve back then, hoping she could solve all these issues or, at the very least, bring them to the Senate’s attention. She knew by now that her earlier resolve was idealistic, but she refused to give up on dreaming yet.

By all means, she should be able to breathe here openly.

Instead, she was exhausted before the first day was even over. Her datapads were hidden at the bottom of her suitcase, all motivation she had wanted to dedicate to her work gone. The thought of the upcoming vote wasn’t leaving her alone, and her inability to do anything against it from here was frustrating her to no end. When night fell, she couldn’t keep her eyes closed and drift away to the realm of dreams, and so, after hours of tossing and turning in her bed, she found herself sitting on the veranda, watching the lake and sipping on a cup of tea.

“Mind if I join you?”

Padmé nearly spilled her tea over her nightgown, too surprised by Anakin’s sudden appearance.

“Anakin!” she exclaimed. “Don’t scare me.”

“Sorry, sorry, I apologize,” he replied, his hands raised in a placating manner. He slipped onto the bench she was sitting on, cross-legged, and allowed her to bury her feet beneath his thighs to keep them from freezing.

It was comfortable, domestic.

“We both look like shit,” Padmé said, for once foregoing all her usual diction.

Anakin only huffed in reply and rubbed over his red-rimmed eyes. Perhaps her words had been too kind. Padmé looked horrible and Anakin looked as if the world had ended and it had been his fault.

“You don’t look as if you were crying,” he replied, open and vulnerable as Padmé hadn’t expected him to be and she had trouble expressing.

How strange to think that the Jedi, of whom the galaxy painted such a stoic picture, were all so profoundly emotional when the gossip rags of Coruscant liked to interpret Padmé’s entire mood by a single hair out of place.

She wondered who else Anakin allowed to see him in such a delicate state of mind. Obi-Wan, likely, Anakin couldn’t hide a thing from his Master, and Ahsoka probably also got the same courtesy, being his future apprentice.

“No, just my thoughts keeping me awake,” Padmé said. “I worry for the Republic, the Senate. We are failing, falling, breaking apart, and there is nothing I can do from here. It is driving me _insane_.”

“Yeah,” Anakin breathed. “So many possibilities on your fingertips and yet you can’t move, hold back by too much.”

Silence fell between them. They had spent many hours in silence since the first night on the transport, Anakin waking up, screaming—

“Is it still the same nightmare?” she asked. “Your mother—”

She didn’t even have to finish; Anakin simply nodded. “Yes, it’s still about her. I _know_ I shouldn’t keep thinking about it, she can handle herself, but the dreams remain and I can’t figure out why.”

The sun was starting to rise, slowly turning the surface of the lake into gold. The artists of the past weren’t wrong when they called Naboo a treasure.

“DO you want to go swimming?”

“What?” Anakin stared at her half-confused and Padmé tried to ignore the part of herself that said it would be a lot of fun to kiss that confusion away. She didn’t have time for crushes and the way Anakin made her heart beat quicker.

“Do you want to go swimming in the lake,” she repeated. “I dislike feeling unproductive and sitting around here is nothing but that. So we could go swimming, hope the water wakes us up a little more or exhausts us enough so that we can fall asleep. And if it doesn’t, we can eat breakfast.”

Anakin blinked, then he squinted at her. “Do you really want to wake up your attendants at 4am for breakfast?”

He was focusing on the wrong thing. This wasn’t about breakfast, this was about getting washed by the cold so she could stop thinking about the slight freckles on his cheeks, his smile, and the fact that their Republic was slowly turning into something hideous and monstrous.

“I can make breakfast,” Padmé elaborated and immediately pouted when Anakin’s expression turned into that of pure theatric fear. “Oh, shut up! My cooking isn’t that bad!”

“Yeah, I heard your handmaidens talk about it. Have you actually eaten it?”

“Yes, idiot, and I tell you it’s fine.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t say anything until you’ve tried it.”

“Of course, milady.”

“Anakin!”

Padmé didn’t end up cooking but was swiftly places at the kitchen table, still dressed in her now drenched nightgown as Anakin commandeered her kitchen. It was a terribly lovely sight, one she could enjoy for longer than this moment lasted.

X

Shmi was having a brilliant morning and for just a moment, she wished it would last forever.

She knew there were plenty of Jedi that would look at her with the same expression they usually directed at her son’s lineage for this thought. Certainly, there were better things to be done at three in the morning than get up and hash out an attack plan on Jabba’s palace, but Shmi Skywalker had missed the Tatooine sunrises. She hadn’t missed getting up after not enough hours of sleep to drag herself and her son to work, but the few minutes Anakin and she had always observed the sunrises together, those had been special in her heart.

At that moment, listening to just their breaths and heartbeat and that note she had come to associate with the Force, the universe had almost been perfect.

Then reality had come crashing down on her again.

“We don’t have enough manpower to take Jabba,” Shmi decided, running her fingers through her hair and tying it up so it would cease falling into her eyes.

The freedom fighters on Tatooine had welcomed her with open arms. Not too many remained of Shmi’s time in Gardulla’s ownership, either having left the planet or having died for their cause, but those that did remain respected her and her tales.

“So what are we supposed to do? Our resources are running dry and we can’t continue on for much longer.”

That was true.

While pirates were quite willing to ship weapons to the rebellion for the right price, they sold to Jabba all the same, and the rebels didn’t have the backing of the Hutt Council. If things went even more sideways, the pirates would stop aiding them. It wasn’t like they could promise them much for the future, unlike the Hutts. The only reason their Council hadn’t intervened yet was the fact that they hoped to claim Tatooine once Jabba was gone. The Hutts didn’t even care about each other, only profit counted, and the rebels were in the way of that.

This entire situation was less than ideal.

“What of the moisture farmers?”

“Some will help,” a blond girl – Beru was her name if Shmi remembered correctly – spoke up. “My fiancé and his father and their friends are willing. They’re sick of the endless fighting and Jabba’s taxes aren’t easy on them but…”

“The rest are slavers themselves,” a togruta man spat next to her. “They’re just waiting for us to die out, unwilling to raise a finger because they won’t survive without their bought labor.”

That, too, was a problem.

Shmi sighed and tiredly rubbed her eyes. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and Shmi, as much as she wanted, couldn’t openly interfere. It was a fact she loathed, but if they lost, if too much shifted because of her unsanctioned interference, she might be marked a traitor to the Republic, even though Tatooine didn’t belong to it.

The possible backlash against the Jedi was also nothing to gamble with. The fact that her teacher had let her go meant that she had placed her utmost faith in Shmi to do the right thing and make the wise choices.

If they won, it was no trouble. The Republic would welcome the hyperspace lanes attached to Tatooine and the control they would be able to exercise.

If they had a new government standing.

If they had the right support.

Damn it.

If Shmi had someone else here, Dooku or Quinlan, maybe then she could think of something else. Shmi didn’t take missions into war zones or complicated political situations for a reason. Natural disasters were more her forte. She always got too emotionally involved and Tatooine was the epicenter of all that had hurt her once.

Dooku and Quinlan were well versed in Outer Rim politics and where to get what resources. Had she been just a little more foresighted, he would have anticipated the troubles and called them before leaving. It would be better if she could get the help of someone who specifically knew Tatooine well—

“A’Sharad.”

Shmi stopped breathing, stopped moving as an impossible idea formed in her mind.

“I’m sorry?” Shmi turned her head to the right, where she found Tal’oola looking at her with concern.

“No, I just— I had a thought. I was reminded of another Jedi.”

A murmur filled the room. Jedi had quite the reputation, even her on Tatooine, and the presence of a second was already unimaginable.

“Will they be able to help us?”

Shmi shook her head. AS far as she knew, A’Sharad was halfway across the galaxy with his new apprentice. “No, no. But that is not what counts. His name is A’Sharad Hett. He came to the Order about five years after I did.”

“Hett?” Beru frowned and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Like that Tusken?”

Shmi nodded. “Yes, A’Sharad was born and raised here by his father, a former Jedi, among the Tuskens. He told me about Tatooine when he came to the Order and described the terrible fate that had befallen his tribe. We don’t have enough people, but perhaps we don’t need to go look further than the desert.”

“You want to get help from the Tuskens?” another one asked, fear clearly written all over them as they shook like a windchime during storm season. “That is doomed to kill us.”

“Why would it?” Shmi asked in turn, surprised with herself when she felt like a teacher in a classroom. She put the thought of Qui-Gon asking when she would take on a Padawan aside. “The Tuskens have never had any quarrel with us.”

“They _killed_ us!”

They had, but never out of pleasure. The Tuskens valued fighting a strong opponent and defeating them, as well as bringing destruction down on the people who had stolen their land.

Slaves were never their actual targets.

“No, they killed what they thought were intruders on their land. I am sure they would be more than happy to work with us if we were to extend our hands. The various tribes are splintered and not unified so they can’t openly fight back. If we combine our forces, we can take on Jabba.”

Tal’oola nodded along, the deep scar on her face making her expression look darker than it actually was. “And how would you convince them?”

“We let the Tuskens take back what was theirs in the first place, all those moisture farms outback, and we keep the capitals, maybe establish some trade routes or safe passages. They aren’t brutal savages. They raise their children and tell them stories. We just need to convince them that we are honest since nobody else has truly tried talking with them before.”

“And you will go talk to them?” Tal’oola asked concerned and put a hand on Shmi’s shoulder.

Shmi _had_ been instructed in the fine art of diplomacy and she knew how the Tuskens spoke with one another, what they respected and expected. She had enjoyed the lessons A’Sharad had been able to teach her. It had helped her understand more about her former prison and the grieving teenager had learned to let go. They had healed side-by-side and once this was over, Shmi would thank him by bringing him a meal of his people.

Shmi knew that she could do it; she _had_ to. While Yoda was not her teacher, Yaddle had been fond of his saying as well.

Shmi exhaled. “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More on Obi-Wan in the next chapter. Also hey! I cracked 30K!  
> Remember how this _entire fanfic_ was supposed to be 15 and now AOTC isn't even over?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't talk about it.

The more time Padmé spent in Anakin’s company the more she realized that it was, in fact, a _horrible_ idea to spend time with him. This epiphany had crept up on her so very innocently with shifts as insignificant as a single butterfly until Padmé had finally been able to take in the sight of the tidal wave rising within her chest. Anakin, when he wasn’t waking from his nightmares, more strings of doubts and visions than man, was funny and insightful, and Padmé couldn’t believe her own traitorous heart for beating faster whenever she was close to him.

She hadn’t meant to catch feelings for her friend.

She was just fine being befriended with him. Her parents had been lucky as that their marriage had gone hand in hand with love. Padmé hadn’t ever really expected something like that for herself, which would have been just fine. As a prominent member of Naboo’s high society, the idea that she might marry for love was quite ridiculous, but she hadn’t ever truly cared. Padmé had been just too busy with her duties and then felt content when she was surrounded by her friends.

And now here she was, thinking of kissing Anakin as if she were a little schoolgirl. Were she to start drawing hearts in the pages of her notes, she’d fulfill the cliché completely. None of this would be a problem if she just knew how Anakin felt about all of this, romance in general for one.

She didn’t even know if he even liked to kiss people. Did Anakin even _get_ crushes? He had never spoken of them to her and he had shared even some of his deepest fears. Then again, Padmé hadn’t ever said a word about romance either. Maybe Anakin just hadn’t ever thought he could bring it up?

Padmé pondered on the question of whether that made her a bad friend. She had never had the issue with her handmaidens. It would have been impossible to avoid the topic going by how Rabe, Sabé, and Eirtaé hardy let go of one another. Padmé could bring it up with Anakin now, but then he would wonder why she had done it and urgh.

Why couldn’t have Padmé decided to catch feelings at another time? Didn’t Shiraya above know that this was really not the time to worry about romance when she had a job to do?

It was _awful_.

The timing couldn’t have been worse.

And yet, when Anakin did cartwheels over the meadow, practiced his katas and reciting poetry from old homework assignments as if he had memorized these particular words just for Padmé, she felt as if perhaps, maybe—

No.

No, this was dumb.

“—and then Ferus decided we could sneak out to the lower levels and I learned why I shouldn’t drink any alcohol,” Anakin continued his story, eyes sparkling.

Maybe she should have read more romance books to learn whether the jump her heart did at their sight was normal.

“Oh?” Padmé asked. “And why is that?”

Anakin pulled a face, evidently not wanting to answer, but when Padmé just kept silent, waiting, he relented with a sigh. “Because I’ll start saying all the most embarrassing stuff.”

Padmé grinned. “Like what?”

“I think I confessed that hid Obi-Wan’s lightsaber when I was twelve, blamed Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan believed me. Or that I helped Aayla dye Quinlan’s hair,” Anakin replied. “Or I think my best friend is really—”

Anakin promptly shut up, cheeks flushed. “Eh. Nothing.”

Padmé had learned the fine art of discretion, allowing the person she was conversing with to drop the subject at hand. By all means, it would be kinder on Anakin and on her own soul to simply let him switch the topic and their exchange here.

But Padmé’s heart, that burning jealous organ, wasn’t satisfied and sowed doubt in her mind, demanded that she inquired what words, what feelings, Anakin was hiding.

“Your best friend is what?” Padmé asked carefully.

At first, he was silent, caught between two options Padmé was so cruelly forcing him to choose. And then Anakin began to speak.

X

Obi-Wan’s day was rapidly turning from bad to worse. He thought he’d be able to deal with whatever this mission would bring. Finding a planet that had obviously been erased from the archives? Fine. He could deal.

Traveling to that planet? Also no trouble. Obi-Wan had been on a mission with Qui-Gon and Dooku simultaneously, which was less of a mission and more a secondary trial to endure. Sometimes he was still haunted by their constant, ceaseless, calamitous _bickering_. Force, it was still a miracle Obi-Wan hadn’t just abandoned them to their quarreling and finished the mission on his own.

So yes, Obi-Wan could tolerate a lot. He could even deal with rain drenching him until he was shaking, the cold seeping into his limbs and his mind, a cruel and a terrible tormentor.

However, Obi-Wan could not endure the feeling of pure agony and helplessness that assaulted him from all sides as he walked through this city’s hallways.

He wasn’t sure if it was the Force speaking to him, weeping, telling him to look and help and children, so many bright lines, born and _raised for war and slaughter—_

Obi-Wan wanted to throw up. It was a harrowing experience. The people, _clones_ , goods to be grown, bought and sold, were all moving in unison, acting as if they were a single organism, not thousands upon thousands of individual lights.

Obi-Wan really should have listened to his instincts and taken another Master with him.

“Is it possible to speak with their progenitor? Obi-Wan asked.

The Kaminoan looked at Obi-Wan with surprise, but then they nodded. “Of course, Jango Fett lives here with his son.”

_With his son?_ Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine any parent that would willingly expose their child to such horrors. He’d never raise a Padawan here and he doubted any other Master of the Order would disagree with that sentiment. Who could raise their own child next to thousands of identical clones that were treated as nothing more than fancy blasters? If Fett truly was a father who cared about his son’s wellbeing, he must recognize that this was not the place to bring up a child.

“Is he here right now?”

“Yes, I can lead you to him.”

“That would be much appreciated. Before that, though, I would like to make a call to the Council, if that is possible.”

The Kaminoan blinked, then inclined their head. “Follow me.”

X

Dooku had expected to enjoy a quiet morning. Despite his Padawan’s claims, he was not oblivious to his age and took care of himself. Dooku practiced his morning meditations even more carefully when he knew he had an entire day of exhaustingly polite political posturing ahead of him. He didn’t particularly look forward to his meeting with the Chancellor later. While he was a seemingly kind man, yes, and did believe in the Jedi, he was also a cut-throat power-hungry politician. He hadn’t contributed anything useful to the Senate in the recent years to ensure that the Republic fell apart at a slower pace.

They had reached the point where it was only a question of time until the already tense situation finally cracked and passive-aggressive negotiations turned into battle. Many Senators saw it, either displeased and fearful or ambitious and voracious.

Dooku looked forward to the next election. Hopefully, someone more sensible from the Loyalist faction would take his seat.

After Dooku had finished his meditation and poured himself a cup of tea, his comm rang. Annoyance bubbled up in him until he saw who was calling him.

“Obi-Wan,” Dooku greeted his grand-Padawan. “How is your mission faring?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan replied, a hurried look on his face. “Or as well as it can be. Dooku, I don’t have much time. I need to ask you a question.”

This couldn’t be good. “Ask away, Obi-Wan.”

“What can you tell me about Master Sifo-Dyas?”

Dooku froze. Slowly he put his teacup down on the table, the ceramic suddenly no longer warm but scalding, burning through his defenses and mercilessly dropping on his heart like acid.

_Sifo-Dyas_.

Dooku hadn’t thought about him in a while, the memories too painful. He couldn’t linger on the memories of his dearly beloved friend without that hollow pit, the old festering wound ripping open and, with it, the undeniable longing.

“Sifo-Dyas disappeared shortly before Shmi decided to drag me back to the temple,” Dooku replied shortly, suddenly at a loss for words. Obi-Wan was investigating the attempted assassination of Senator Amidala. Nothing in his research should lead him to Sifo-Dyas and the night terrors Dooku had never been able to soothe.

The message of Sifo-Dyas’s disappearance, his _loss_ , that tell-tale feeling of a bond snapping had been enough back then to drag him down to the dark depths Shmi and Yaddle had rescued him from. It had been easy to focus on other things in the aftermath. He had helped Qui-Gon recover, taught him how to control the force as he had once before. Then there was Anakin’s education to consider, Obi-Wan’s dissatisfaction with his fighting style, little Ahsoka, and squabbling with the council on Shmi’s training and what that might mean for other, older, Force-sensitives.

Dooku hadn’t come to peace with his grief. He had learned to ignore it, distracting himself with a thousand other tasks. “Obi-Wan, what happened?”

A shadow passed over his face. “Nothing good.”

Dooku could have guessed that on his own.

X

“So,” Anakin said, lying on his back among the flowers, his fingers just a hairsbreadth away from Padmé’s. “Are we going to talk about this?”

“Do you _want_ to talk about this?” Padmé asked him in return. Anakin wasn’t looking at her but staring at the blue sky above, searching for all the answers hidden in the fluffy white clouds. He raised his hands and spread his fingers, trying to reach for it.

“I don’t know. I think we should. Probably. Obi-Wan always says I should examine my feelings and figure out why I am feeling a particular way.”

“Obi-Wan is pretty smart,” Padme conceded. “We shouldn’t _have_ to talk about anything. It’s not like we can really go on with this.”

Anakin turned around so he was lying on his stomach, supporting his head with one hand. “Why not?”

“Uh, Jedi and Senator of Naboo? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for you to date anyone outside your Order.”

Padmé was sure she had read something like that last night on her frantic search for arguments validating her decision to not date her friend. She knew she was forbidden from starting a relationship with a Jedi for as long as she was in office. The law was meant to guarantee that Senators couldn’t claim their system had been ignored in favor of another. While in theory, that was a good idea, in practice, everyone tried to get favors from the Jedi anyway. By the moons, it was an open secret Valorum had only been able to get Naboo help so quickly by skipping many of the official channels.

“Ah, no.” Anakin shook his head. “It’s forbidden to have any relationships to someone outside the Order who is of any significance in their homeworld and could influence the political climate of such.”

Padmé snorted, Anakin’s words sounding perfectly recited. “That’s just bureaucratic speech for ‘everyone who isn’t a Jedi.’”

“You don’t _have_ to be a Jedi for it, just, you know, be a part of the Order in a certain capacity. But that would mean giving up your job. And you love your job.”

That really was the problem, wasn’t it? Padmé adored representing her people and Anakin thrived around his people. He’d make a miserable trophy husband, probably.

Immediately the thought of Anakin dressed in typical Naboo fashion crossed her mind and Padmé cursed her own imagination.

“Yeah.” Anakin sighed. “This is probably not such a good idea, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

But Padmé still wanted it.

X

The desert was kind to them tonight, the winds didn’t howl, and no storms chased them.

“Are you sure about this?” Beru asked again, keeping a hand comfortably on her blaster. Shmi liked her. She reminded her a little of Obi-Wan.

“Yes,” Shmi replied. “This is our best bet right now. If this doesn’t work out, we can always search for a second option. But first we must exhaust all the resources we do have.”

Shmi could feel various life forms in the distance. They weren’t far from the next camp. With luck, it would be the only one they had to go to for support. “Alright, from here on, everyone follow my lead.”

Shmi’s group was small, only Beru and three others and a protocol droid Shmi was determined to take back home with her. Anakin would love him.

They headed in the direction of the camp, always on the lookout for any attackers. Shmi could feel the tension in the air and how close it was to snapping. Before they could get too close, the first scout noticed them and from there on it didn’t take long for them to be picked up by the Tuskens.

A’Sharad had once told her that her accent was horrible, but Shmi hoped that she was still understandable to this tribe.

“ _Eyaak urk urk_ _!_ _Ru rah ru rah._ ” Shmi called out loudly into the night. At first, silence followed, then a shadowy figure approached them.

The Tusken was wearing their traditional cloth. As soon as Shmi was sure that they could see her hands, she began signing the signs she had retained, more confident in those than she was in her spoken Tusken. She hoped that if something went sideways, the protocol droid could help translations along at least a little. That was if the Tusken didn’t demand he be destroyed.

_My name is Shmi Skywalker,_ she signed. _I am a friend of A’Shard Hett, son of Sharad Hett, whose clan walked the great plains and now guides the sandstorms._

At first there was no reply, then the Tusken signed back. _I see you, woman of the Sky, what do you want?_

That was a good start. Shmi tentatively allowed herself to grow a little bolder. This tribe lived closer to most settlements; they should understand Basic well. _May I continue in Basic?_

_If need be._

“My friends and I have come to make an offer to your leader,” Shmi said. “Your people and our have been oppressed too long. We intend to change the system on this planet. Are you willing to help us or, at least, hear our offer?”

Silence followed her statement, then the Tusken inclined their head. “I will take you to our leader. The machine and the bright weapons must remain.”

“Of course,” Shmi replied and turned to her companions.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Beru asked.

“As safe as we can be. We need to leave Threepio and any of the more tech-savvy weapons here,” Shmi replied.

“Leave me? Oh, I think I might faint!”

Threepio’s theatrics made her smile. They might not be able to use the droid to help negotiations along, but at least they hadn’t fought anyone yet.

They stripped themselves of their weapons, though Shmi kept her lightsaber concealed within her robes. She wasn’t going to lose her blade. She was reasonably sure that the others had also kept at least a knife on themselves.

The Tusken observed them and then, obviously content with their state, guided them inside the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tusken, taken from wookiepedia: _I mean you no harm. I come in peace._
> 
> I have no idea why this story decided it's gonna need past Dooku/Sifo-Dyas or Eirtaé/Sabé/Rabé but here we are.  
> And yes, I know the whole marriage thing is a little weak but the point of this story is writing Anakin as an existential headache. Someone else can dig deep into Jedi-Senate politics.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it!


	12. Chapter 12

Padmé was woken by a loud cry. Within seconds she was up and running across the hallway, throwing open the door to Anakin’s room. She had never been particularly great with staying away from danger. She always ran to it, eyes open wide, afraid and yet even more determined to protect whoever was in trouble. In this case, it was her best friend. Anakin was awake, sitting on his bis bed, various objects floating midair as he struggled for breath.

“Anakin,” Padmé said, then hurried to his side, put her hands on either side of his face and guided him through his breathing. Quietly, just loud enough that only he could hear it, she counted his breaths in every language she knew and then some she could only swear in. She could do this for him, show him how to keep on living, grounded to the world. Slowly the objects he had sent flying returned to their place or at least to the ground. All while Padmé kept on talking. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed until he had finally calmed down enough to speak, but by then, the sun was up in the sky and her throat hoarse.

“Anakin, what happened?” Padmé asked him carefully. “Was it—”

“My Mom,” Anakin croaked. “ _Again_. She’s hurt. I know it. I can still feel it following me out of this dream and into reality. I couldn’t feel her pain before but it’s still there now and—”

Anakin looked as if he was going to work himself into another panic and so Padmé quickly continued speaking, letting him listen to her voice so that he wouldn’t focus on his anxieties again and possibly crash all the furniture in his room. By now, the other attendants must have woken up as well; they weren’t exactly silent. Padmé kept on talking about nothing and everything, continuing on and keeping Anakin in this universe as he held tightly onto her arms, his fingernails digging into her bare arms.

“Better?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice still rough. “I just—”

He stopped, took another deep breath. “Padmé, I’m so sorry, but I need to go see my mother. I need to know that she is alright and that I won’t lose her. I can arrange for some protection here, I’m sure, spread myself a little thinner…”

“Nonsense,” Padmé replied stubbornly. “I’m following you. Friends stick together and you said it before, we’re a team. I won’t leave you alone to deal with this. My family has a ship we can take. We don’t have to tell anyone at all.” Padmé grinned, trying to loosen the atmosphere. “It can be our own secret _secret_ mission.”

Anakin stared at her. “Your family just has a ship you can take.”

Padmé rolled her eyes. “We’re well-known on Naboo; of course, we have a ship. You _know_ this. Get dressed and let’s go. Off to Tatooine, it is, right?”

“Yeah,” Anakin replied, his gaze far away. “Tatooine.”

x

The trip to Tatooine was a short one, yet it felt much longer than it had any right to. Padmé hadn’t been quite sure what to expect of this planet. Anakin had mentioned it only once or twice before his nightmares had occurred, and neither time had he sounded particularly fond of his former homeworld. Padmé understood why this planet was nothing more than one horrible experience after another to Anakin. He had been a slave here, a state of being Padmé had hardly been able to comprehend when she was younger. Slavery wasn’t supposed to exist in the Republic and, foolish as she had been, she had believed it.

Even if it had been years ago, Anakin had been four or so when he had been taken in by the Jedi, the memories must have stayed with him.

They stopped the ship near the most lavish building this planet had to possess. It looked a little run-down as if years of usage had turned an imposing palace into a home, or a fortress going by the many armed guards around.

When they walked through the dunes, approaching it, they were stopped by two guards.

“Who are you?” they asked and Padmé wanted to speak up, tell a lie of omission because Senator Amidala of Naboo was not on this Outer Rim world, but she _couldn’t_. Her voice froze as time slowed down around her, then it broke entirely like the doors of the building ahead.

“Hey!” One of the guards yelled, immediately raising their blaster. “You can’t just—” But Anakin didn’t listen. His mind was elsewhere as he stormed off, leaving Padmé behind. One guard ran after him as a second focused on Padmé. _“Who are you?”_

Right, so much for making an undercover entrance.

“My name is Padmé Amidala. I am the Senator of Naboo. My companion is the Jedi Anakin Skywalker. He is searching for his mother.”

“Skywalker?” the guard repeated and dropped their weapon, face suddenly grim. “Follow me.”

X

His mother looked so _pale_ like she were dying, and Anakin could only think of Naboo and Qui-Gon’s blood beneath his fingernails and no, _no, no_. He couldn’t do that again, he _couldn’t_ , it had _hurt_ , it had been wrong, but he loved her, _she was his mother and—_

“What happened?” Padmé asked.

One of the people here, insignificant little flies, how dare they live when his mother—

“We allied with three Tusken tribes to take down Jabba,” one of them replied and clicked their tongue. “Good fighters, never would have thought to be planning battle with them. It all worked out so smoothly too. We held of Jabba’s forces, then one set of an explosion and….” They trailed off. “Shmi saved us but got hit by the blast. We tried to do what we could, but it isn’t exactly as if we have core world high tech out here.”

No, they didn’t.

In a trance, Anakin slowly unwrapped his mother’s bandages, revealing burned skin. The worst of the wounds reached so deep, he thought he saw her bone. Behind him, _next to him_ , a shoulder on his scales, Padmé steadied him.

“She is alive,” Padmé said. “My ship has all medical supplies necessary. She will not die here.”

“I know.”

He did. His mother would survive, but only because they were here so quickly. Had they been just a day later… Anakin didn’t even want to consider it. He had to stay calm, stay focused, listen. This was not Naboo, his mother not Qui-Gon, and the Force still wasn’t guiding him.

Why was his parent still quiet? What did it want Anakin to do?

“What about Jabba?” Anakin asked in lieu of getting the answer he truly wanted.

The rebel ground their teeth. “Got away.”

_Got away_. Anakin snarled animalistic, claws sharpening, teeth growing in length. _No, not for much longer._

He focused on his mother’s wounds. He still wasn’t one for healing delicately, but he did well enough, or so he thought. Her flesh mended itself back together and her soul, bright and burning, ever the fighter, clung to her flesh. His mother had always been a grounded person and they had nearly stolen her away. This could not rest, could not wait.

“Where is the slug?”

“We suspect he is hiding out in his harvest residence.”

Anakin nodded, then pressed his commlink into Padmé’s hand. “Call Qui-Gon or master Dooku or Ahsoka if neither picks up. Mother needs to be brought back to the temple.”

Then he left, storms twirling in his mind, hungry for blood.

X

When Dooku wanted to teach his lineage, they showed themselves driven but reluctant to accept his corrections. They didn’t want him to point out their mistakes, yet all hoped to thrive from his teachings. His presence to them was, so it seemed, a prison as much as something they longed for.

And yet, when all of them but Ahsoka were out of the temple, suddenly he was very popular.

“Anakin,” he greeted someone who was decidedly not Anakin Skywalker on Naboo, but Padmé Amidala of Naboo.

“Senator Amidala,” he corrected himself, hoping he didn’t show any sign of confusion. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The poor girl looked distressed, the fine mask she had crafted over the years slipping. “Shmi had been harmed. We’re on Tatooine and Anakin just took off and —”

Foolish woman—

Dooku had told her that going to Tatooine on her own was a mistake, but Shmi Skywalker wouldn’t be herself if she actually listened. He was already halfway out of his rooms when he realized he had never stopped the call and been consoling a stressed Padmé absentmindedly.

X

Jango Fett was an interesting man. Obi-Wan could appreciate somebody who could bullshit their way through an entire conversation, but Obi-Wan dislike _liars_. And Jango Fett was lying so obviously, so _recklessly_ that he was endangering his son. Boba Fett was a cute kid and Obi-Wan could tell that Jango cared for him. Yet Boba was nothing but another clone of him, one of a million other copies in the eyes of the Kaminoans. There had to be something special about him that Jango managed to love this child, but not all the others.

Obi-Wan wondered if his aging was accelerated as well. Whether the boy had grown up together with his batchmates until Jango had picked him out because he was special.

As much as his mission mattered, Obi-Wan almost wanted to kick Jango out of the room so he could have a conversation with his son. A child growing up like this couldn’t be well-cared for. Once more, Obi-Wan wondered what kind of father would raise their child in such a dark and lonely place.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to talk to Jango for long as the bounty hunter escaped after thoroughly dragging Obi-Wan through the dark, cold waters of Kamino and didn’t appreciate being chased.

Obi-Wan usually enjoyed solo missions, he really did, but this one was starting to get on his nerves. It didn’t help that he couldn’t focus. Anakin’s uneasiness was growing like an itch he couldn’t scratch and Obi-Wan longed to know what his Padawan was doing on Naboo that he felt like that.

Sighing, Obi-Wan hoped he wouldn’t have to take another mission like this for another month or so.

He needed a break.

X

_Birth. Growth. Reproduction. Death. Birth. Growth. Reproduction. Death. Birth—_

The screaming wouldn’t end. The _begging_.

Anakin didn’t care. Larger than himself, his ribs peeking through his _flesh-skin-host-prison,_ he ripped into his target. They hurt his _mother-teacher-guardian_ and he was going to eradicate them from this plane of existence until he could no longer feel them.

He roared, took the circle of life into his own hands, caused _disruption_ , caused balance, _broke_ and bend and made it _his own_ because he was his own, and it all was his, no longer an extension of his _parent-will-life_ —

His blade stopped centimeters away from his target.

Big eyes stared up at him.

_Young_.

Light, _light_ -bright where this room had been so _dark_ and ugly and blood and _pain_ and they had hurt his mother, he could have lost he—

The child cooed at him. Their father’s _blood-life-birth_ ran through their veins and Anakin—

Anakin stopped. Returned to himself. Closed his too many eyes, let four arms become two again, the scales recede. He was not what the darkness and fear could make him, not when faced with light.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Not for himself, not for the scum, the trash, the tormentor of his childhood, but for this child. “I’m sorry I took him, I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_.”

Anakin slowly sunk to the ground, the kid still staring at him, not scared any longer because the monster had disappeared, leaving only Anakin, who felt far too small and human. Anakin, whose mother was injured.

Anakin, whose heart stopped beating when he felt a bond _stutter_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody is having a good time. Bonus points to all who can figure out what's going on with Anakin.  
> Thanks for reading! :D


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added some new tags!

Obi-Wan woke slowly, dragging himself out of the fog of unawareness, the haze leaving him only reluctantly. It was remarkably similar to awakening from a drugged or inebriated state of being, though Obi-Wan could not remember being inflicted with any toxins. However, his memory wasn’t too reliable of an account, given that his capturers could have given him something while he was knocked out. Perhaps sneaking to Geonosis without properly contacting Anakin beforehand hadn’t been the best of moves, but it wasn’t as if he had much of a choice. Anakin’s mind had been too messy to navigate and his comm didn’t reach Coruscant. Obi-Wan could only hope that Anakin had gotten his recording and forwarded it.

His body ached when he tried to sit up and any attempt at figuring out where exactly he was besides in a room shrouded in darkness was for naught. _Great situation you got yourself into, Kenobi._

Obi-Wan dropped his head back against the wall, wincing when that made his head rang. He was bound to be concussed. His attackers certainly hadn’t cared too much about what state they left him in.

Reaching out with the Force was also not much of a success as he felt his connection restrained. He frowned in displeasure, trying to make out anything on the cuffs on his wrists, but it was too dark and he couldn’t feel anything. If he weren’t injured, perhaps he could break out of them, but as it were—

“Are you awake?”

Obi-Wan raised his head, looking into the direction the voice had come from. He still couldn’t see in the dark, but he heard chains moving until, after a moment, a small hand reached for his leg.

“Jedi?”

He knew that voice.

“Boba Fett?” Obi-Wan asked. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”

Last Obi-Wan had known, the boy was still with his father. They had landed on Geonosis, Obi-Wan following him, and then— blackout. It frustrated Obi-Wan like nothing else that he had no idea what happened after.

“The Jedi took Dad,” Boba said.

The Jedi? No, that made no sense. The Jedi wouldn’t let Obi-Wan remain imprisoned, never mind do the same to a child like Boba. Obi-Wan wanted to question him more, but he didn’t need the Force to tell what Boba really meant going by how much the boy’s voice had shaken.

“I’m sorry.”

Silence fell over them.

X

Hours passed. Obi-Wan was worried, bored, and in pain. He still couldn’t see any better, but he had moved slightly into the general direction Boba was in, offering comfort the boy had been quick to accept. If he had to watch his father die, presumably killed by someone pretending to be a Jedi – or worse, looking just like them but being far more malicious – there was a chance the boy would reject him. Instead, he had curled up next to Obi-Wan, face hidden in his robes. No words passed between them; the room was as silent as the grave until the door finally opened. Light entered the room, hurting Obi-Wan’s eyes until he adjusted to it. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw who it was.

“Master Kadann,” Obi-Wan said when he made out the older man.

Kadann had left the Order only a short while ago, but Obi-Wan still remembered it. The news had spread like wildfire and Anakin hadn’t been too happy about it. That Obi-Wan remembered particularly well. How much Anakin had fret when he had heard the Master had left the temple, saying that it wouldn’t help Kadann.

Anakin had been so worried about the growing—

_Darkness. Choking, strangling, do you feel how strong it has grown, dear child?_

Next to Obi-Wan, Boba trembled. “The _Jedi_ ,” he whispered, grieving terrified boy.

Obi-Wan wished he had his lightsaber.

This was not a Jedi anymore.

X

Anakin came back to the base with a Hutt child in his arms, fear haunting his frame even more than before. The winds appeared strong enough to whisk him away, easily making him fracture.

“Anakin—” Padmé started but stopped when she saw the state he was in.

_Blood_.

Anakin was dressed in it like Shiraya on her wedding night.

Splatters of it were in his hair, in his ripped tunics. Only his arms, his hands with which he was touching the child, were spared of it, childish innocence washing gruesome death clean.

“Jabba is dead,” Anakin said. “I killed them, all of them. His child— they can stay somewhere. With the Jedi, maybe. I—”

He looked distracted, absent, like he was trying to shake off the fog. “Obi-Wan is in danger. I felt it, _feel it_. But there’s something _wrong_ , I can’t sense him anymore, he’s gone—”

Padmé thought if he continued, fell deeper into the pit clawing at him, he wouldn’t be able to get out of it again. Anakin needed rest, peace, and quiet, but Padmé couldn’t give him much of either. “We received a transmission from Obi-Wan. He ran into some trouble on Geonosis and asked for the message to be re-routed to the Council. I did so and also called Master Dooku. He is on his way here to help. Your mother will be alright.”

She would be in safe hands.

Padmé deeply understood wanting to be at two places simultaneously, had experienced such so often in her life already.

“Shmi will be fine,” Padmé said.

“I— I _have_ to go,” Anakin muttered. “I have to stay. I— He’s— Obi-Wan needs me. Mom needs me. I know it, I can’t—”

Helpless blue eyes looked at Padmé and, more than anything else, she wished she could ease his pain. “Anakin, you are in no state to fight,” Padmé told him softly. She took the Hutt child from him and gave it to the closest rebel. Then she took Anakin’s hands in her own. “The Council is on their way. Obi-Wan will be fine.”

“But I can’t sense him,” Anakin croaked, allowed Padmé to pull him close and hid his face in her shoulder. “I am losing control of everything, Padmé. I can feel myself slipping and I don’t know how or why. I don’t see the way anymore. It feels as if there is something I’m supposed to know, but it’s just out of reach and I can only keep my eyes on all of my loved ones and it’s still not enough.”

It was a weight tied to his legs, dragging him down.

“Obi-Wan needs my help,” Anakin insisted. “And I need him. I need him to be my eyes and look and help me understand and guide me as he was supposed to.” Anakin laughed; it was a bitter and small thing. “When I was young, I saw him in my dreams and was so convinced that he was made for me, I broke him apart to accommodate me. I can’t lose him. I need to go.”

Anakin’s worry and loss were the color of his tabards. Padmé thought of the stories of her childhood. Shiraya, driven mad with fear, rushing to the night, through armies, to find her mortal wife again, bring them both back to their husband. She remembered being so shocked that the calm and good deity would lose control like that.

“Too human,” her mother used to say. “She became too human, but with all her might and power, it was dangerous to lose sight of her divinity because it was still there.”

Padmé thought Anakin might be like that. He had forgotten his purpose, and that which was terrifyingly beautiful lost its grace, scrambling for shards.

Padmé was no goddess, but she had been a Queen and in some cultures that was enough.

“Okay,” Padmé replied. “Promise me you’ll stay by my side.”

He didn’t promise.

Padmé took him anyway.

X

“Why are you doing this?” Obi-Wan asked Kadann as he dragged Obi-Wan through the halls, Boba stumbling behind him, barely keeping up but trying to hold his head high. Boba’s face was swollen, but his expression was cold, devoid of the fear of shaking fingers clinging to Obi-Wan.

He had to keep Kadann’s attention on him so he wouldn’t hurt Boba. “What is this supposed to be?”

“The dawn of a new era,” Kadann replied. “It cannot happen without some sacrifice. The death of a Jedi and a child, even if it _is_ a clone, should be enough.”

And so they were dragged to the arena floor.

X

Everything that could go wrong on Geonosis went wrong. Padmé thought that she really should have known better. Anakin was too distracted and too tired to fight with his full concentration and Padmé had been more exhausted than she thought. Her energy left her just as quickly until they found themselves captured and strapped to a pole.

Anakin had stopped breathing.

Padmé wasn’t sure if he was aware of it, but his chest had stopped rising and falling a while ago. She had first noticed when they were already halfway to Geonosis.

It was only when Obi-Wan managed to get his shackles off that Anakin breathed again.

“I can feel you again,” Anakin repeated. “ _I can feel you_.”

Obi-Wan looked at him with wide eyes. Padmé thought she saw fear in them. “Anakin, what happened?”

“I—”

Before Anakin could answer, the droids began attacking and Padmé focused on keeping herself and the kid of unexplainable origin safe as the two Jedi tried to protect them. Anakin seemed to be fraying at the edges while pulling himself back together in the same breath. Every once in a while, Padmé called out to him, unsure if a sound actually left her mouth or if she was just shouting in her head. He hadn’t promised to stay at her side, but she had promised him. If her best friend decided to be reckless, she could be the responsible one for once.

Just until the armies arrived.

It pained Padmé that she was relieved at the sight of the armies she had tried so hard to protest.

X

Obi-Wan’s bad day could, apparently, still get even worse. He hadn’t quite anticipated that, but he really shouldn’t be surprised. His life had been nothing if not a lesson in preparing for the worst and enduring the storm. They lost Padmé and Boba on the flight chasing after Kadann and Anakin was slipping, falling, _breaking apart—_

Obi-Wan didn’t know what had happened. One day, his Padawan had been fine and then, within the span of one short mission, Anakin had lost so much of his control. What had he seen?

As soon as they saw Kadann, Anakin didn’t waste another second before attacking him. He rushed into combat, terrifyingly protective of Obi-Wan, keeping him out of the battle to the best of his abilities. He fought with a desperation Obi-Wan had only seen once in his life and he wanted to scream, shout that _this is not Naboo, that this was darkness_. Obi-Wan was here and alive and Anakin needed to focus on reality.

Anakin leaped forward.

Obi-Wan stepped back. Pout of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow, small, young, for a split-second, he thought it might be Boba. That moment of hesitation was enough as the shadow leaped at Obi-Wan, glowing red blade.

And then all he felt was pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Anakin, we're really in for it now.  
> (And sorry I haven't been answering comments lately. I read each and every one and I adore them, I just haven't had the spoons to reply. Thank you so much for your support. Without you, this story wouldn't ever be where it is now.)


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